Mamma-bear distributed screamer tags – small plastic bracelets with a coded signal generator in them that constantly broadcast an identifying signal. The sensors on the guns would… or at least should pick up on those and not allow the sentry guns to fire at them.
Wee-woo and Tadibya moved to one side and called to the spirits, summoning a number of watcher spirits. Once they had half a dozen of the wisps summoned, they each summoned a spirit of the land, using their magic to bargain for its service.
When the shamans had completed their summoning, they gathered for a last-minute briefing, studying the map one last time. Spangles described on the map where they had been, showing the position of the ward they had defeated on the second level down of the temple. She recounted the blur of events, the shapes in the darkness, the movement, the panic and running as they were driven back by an assault from some creature barely seen. It was obviously hard for her – and for the rest of the dig team – bringing back memories of unpleasant times.
Kai's team exchanged looks, all thinking along the same lines. This team were too well-equipped, too smooth, too experienced to just fall apart in the way that Spangles was describing. That meant that some creature was almost certainly using magical means to cause fear, panic and terror in their heads. Something powerful enough to overcome their magical defences and strength of will. It did not bode well…
The team grabbed the long spool of fibre optic control cable, and one of the sentry guns, and moved in to the first level, entering the dark doorway exposed in the rent of the mountainside. As they passed into darkness, they could feel the change in atmosphere. The stonework was ancient, dry fitted with no mortar and was of fine workmanship. The stone was a light grey, worn smooth with the passage of time, dry and cold as the bones of the mountain surrounding it. Once past the entry chamber, they moved down passages that stretched nearly four metres high, lending a cathedral like echo to their footsteps. The walls were covered with ancient mosaics and friezes, depicting scenes of battle, pastoral scenes, and abstract works of art. Many of them were faded and damaged in some way, tiles missing or with cracks running across them from the shifting mountain.
As they passed side rooms, their lights illuminated for a moment the contents – burial jars, carvings, frames, and bowls – made of wood, metal and clay, they all seemed as ancient as the temple itself. Footsteps and track marks in the dust showed where the dig team and their drones had moved around them, but mostly they lay undisturbed.
As they passed through the passages they saw a series of holes in the floor. Fearful at first, several of the team approached cautiously, and shone lights down into them. They were perhaps twenty-five millimetres in diameter, and about a hundred millimetres deep, smooth and obviously worked. Most rooms and passages had at least two, sometimes more of these holes, but they couldn't fathom their purpose – but they did not conceal anything, or lead to anywhere. Whilst they were examining these, Tadibya wandered over to a wall and spotted a torch bracket, and let her hands drift over the stonework, comparing it to that of the wall. It was old – still hundreds of years old – but it didn't look as old as the temple itself. Odd. She shrugged, and sensing the others moving further in to the temple, followed them.
They reached the wide pit of the stairwell, and glanced over, staring down into the depths. Their lights illuminated the large angular slabs of stone descending in a spiral along the outer wall, a meter wide. A stone column, intricately carved ran down the centre of the six meter wide space, and stone arches flared out from this to support the inner edge of the stair well in a loose spiral pattern. There was no inside handrail, and the beam from the lights was swallowed by the darkness as they shone their torches down. The team started to spread out, moving down the stairs cautiously with weapons ready for action. Wee-woo asked her spirit to materialise in the physical world, and to carry the sentry gun down to the bottom level. It appeared in the form of an ancient Aboriginal elder, wrinkled skin stained with long life, and with most of its teeth missing, but it grasped the gun easily despite the considerable weight, and then just stepped out into the void, slowly floating downwards. Mamma-Bear and Spotlight played out the cable behind it, ensuring that it didn't kink or catch. The rest of the team moved down, sticking to the outer wall, and moving quietly.
Back on the surface, Marius sat in a comfortable chair, his remote deck connected to the other end of the fibre cable. He was jacked in, his body slack and unmoving as his conscious mind was projected through his rigger interface into the construct of the weapon. He wasn't controlling the gun – he *was* the gun. And right now, it felt odd. His "feet" reported that they were out of contact with the ground, and his view swung wildly from side to side as the spirit carried the weapons platform down. It induced mild motion sickness, but there was nothing he could do about it. A warning window appeared in the top of his view, and with a mental command he accessed the subsystem and examined the data. A moment later he bought up his comm utility, and sent a general broadcast to the team.
"Achtung. Be aware, that I'm starting to lose solid lock on your comm signals. Indications are that it's not anything hostile, just the depth of rock you are travelling through. Expect intermittent comms signals from here on, depending on position." He listened, and caught a number of responses back, some clear, some badly garbled – but enough got through that he was happy his message had been understood.
The spirit reached the bottom of the shaft, and started to move the gun forwards. He saw the team flatten themselves to the walls and then move around the corner into the passage, bounding forward in pairs to cover each other. His sensors reached out and mapped the temple in the IR and UV spectrum, and radar, lidar and ultrasound created a complex and precise 3d map around him that he compared to the visualisation and map provided. He saw one of the team guiding the cable around the corner of a dog-leg in the passage, feeding the cable carefully to allow the spirit to continue its forward motion. He reached a larger chamber, and felt the spirit lower his three legs to the ground, feeling his foot spikes bedding into the stonework, questing for grip. The stonework was a little smooth, not allowing much purchase, so he manually set an upper limit on his rate of fire, bringing down the cyclic rate of the heavy machine gun to ensure that recoil wouldn't send him skittering across the ground and ruin his shooting. There… perhaps six to seven round bursts, with a two second delay – that should do it. He ran a full sensor scan, and picked up the faint return of more tags, bouncing off the walls and passages, indicating they were somewhere ahead. He busied himself with signal path analysis, trying to pin down the exact locations, and calling the team with a sub-window to advise them of his progress.
The team meanwhile had followed the gun down the passage, and started to bunch up. The walls here were darker, made of a different material, or coated in some way. There was a dampness to the air, and a slick film of water clung to the stonework. The temperature had dropped noticeably as they descended the stairs, and the water made the stonework slippery in places, slowing them as they continued their advance. The air was more oppressive down here, and there seemed to be an aura of menace to the place. As they moved into the large chamber and fanned out around the sentry gun, their lights played over the walls, circles of yellow illumination highlighting geometric designs with complex patterns made out of thousands upon thousands of tiles. They quickly scanned around, finding this repeated on all of the walls – no murals down here, no pictures. Just row after row of patterns on the walls.
Aswon keyed on the ghillie suit, and moved past the sentry gun, slowly gliding into position in the long corridor leading towards the target location. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, as he slid around a corner, his mind horribly aware of the blackness behind him, the passages that could contain anything, just behind his back. He stared forward though, reaching with his senses, trying to see or hear anything he could. And just on the edge of his hearing, he made out a noise, quiet sobbing. He activated his comm, advising the rest of the team of what he had heard.
Tadibya and Wee-woo nodded, and called their spirits, sending them forward as a pack to find the rest of the dig team, and then come back to them. The two larger spirits nodded and moved swiftly into the darkness, surrounded by the less substantial and smaller forms of the watcher spirits. Each of them were less powerful, less robust and less intelligent – but there were many of them, forming a mass of bobbing targets that would need to be dealt with individually.
And they were.
Moments later, Wee-woo and Tadibya winced, feeling their spirits being attacked and destroyed, one after another. Whatever was ahead of them was definitely able to access the astral plane, and was powerful. It dealt with the spirits one after another, without encountering too much resistance it seemed.
Only a few spirits made it back, from the pack they had sent – but it was enough. They described what they had found. One of the team was in the chamber they had previously seen, on a stone table at the edge of the water in a large room – just inside where the ward had been. The other four were located in the next chamber over – reached by a pair of small passageways from the first. The information was distributed around the team, and they did a last check of their equipment. Squaring shoulders, they headed for the passageway leading to the room.
Aswon waited for them to reach the corner and take up a covering position, then jogged forwards, trying to remain quiet, but moving as fast as he dared over the moist stones, heading for the next corner. He threw a quick glance into the room, and then turned to cover the corridor. Moments later, Hunter came barrelling past, into the room to cover his back, followed by Shimazu. Spotlight eased up the wall on the other side, on the blind side of the corner, standing with his light machine gun held in two massive hands, with Tadibya, Wee-woo and Spangles behind him. Aswon heard people examining the room behind him, describing some kind of well and plinth, but no threat. Kai bought up the rear, checked around him and then waved to Aswon.
He bounded forward again, feeling the stares of the rest of the team on his back as he made for the next corner, this one leading into a larger split level chamber. Taking a chance he moved at speed around the corner, hoping there was nothing in his way, and ran for the small flight of stairs up to the second level. Climbing the metre or so up to the raised level, he turned and sighted down the passage, calling to the rest that he was in position. He saw Hunter, Shimazu and Spotlight moving up to support him, their lights casting reflections of the dark stone wall.
Something flashed in the rubbish and detritus to his side, a glimmer of something metallic, caught in the reflected light of Spotlight's gun. He spared a quick glance and confirmed – something was buried in the mass of pots, rubble and old clay things, something made of metal. Cautiously he swept the area clear with his foot, whilst trying to maintain his cover on the corridor. Another glance down, and he spotted a long, bronzed spear, now exposed in the junk on the floor. He activated his comms.
"Tads, Aswon. Found a weapon in the room. Long spear. Might be magically trapped or something. Can you come check it?" He waited for an acknowledgement, and then moved forward slightly, getting a better line of sight. He could see the last dogleg twist in the corridor now, and spot the place where the ward had been. The chamber, and the first rescue target was just out of sight.
Shimazu moved forward on the left, with Spotlight on the right, Hunter just behind Shimazu, and the mages still following Spotlight. They moved forward cautiously, but deliberately – aware that the longer they waited the worse it would be for the people they were rescuing, and the longer they gave their foe – whatever it was – to prepare.
Shimazu was advancing with his katana held in a ready position in front of him, his stance wide. Every step was a shuffle recognisable to any martial artist – designed to move quickly, but without crossing the feet and losing his centre. He suddenly stopped though, standing stock still – right in the centre of Aswon's sight picture. Aswon waited for a moment, then hissed at Shimazu to move. His prompt went unanswered.
Slowly though, the sword tip descended, moving in an arc through the air with a slow, deliberate finality, until it hit the floor with a tiny metallic sound. Shimazu's head dropped, until he was staring down at his feet, and his shoulders slumped. Somehow, he looked frail and weak to the others, and a pall of failure and despair enveloped him. There was a moment of silence as the others stopped moving, watching Shimazu to see what would happen. A jarring noise was heard, as the tip of the sword scratched across the surface of the stonework as Shimazu's hands began to tremble with emotion.
Tadibya was the first to respond, suddenly starting to slap her thigh rhythmically. Once she had a beat going, she started to chant, at first in Nenet, but then swapping to English. She called out words of encouragement, to him, then repeating a mantra over and over, "You can do this." The trembles lessened, but did not stop entirely. Kai moved up slightly, and spoke, his voice echoing off the walls and resonating in their ears. His adept powers shaped his voice, the low tones pitched so they were as much felt as heard. His voice carried a great timbre and power.
"Shimazu. Move up." The words seemed to linger in the air, winding themselves around him like the smoke from a fire. Echoes lasted a second longer than they should have.
With a deep ragged breath, Shimazu's head came up, and he stared down the passageway into the darkness. The sword tip raised, returning to the guard position, and he resumed his shuffle forwards. There was a hesitation to his movement still – he quite obviously still feared something – but he pushed forwards regardless. At the back of the group, Spangles started to gesture and weave a spell, pulling mana to her and throwing out a phantasm. Suddenly the walls rippled and changed, Instead of the moist and dull grey stone, there were now bookshelves. Aged, warm oak shelves, illuminated by bright yellow lamps. The books were leather bound, and dusty, but inscribed with titles in gold and silver, glinting in the yellow light. The scene became less oppressive and dismal, seeming just a little more cozy and unthreatening. Kai nodded to her and smiled, and Spangles returned the gesture sharply, concentrating on holding the spell in position. Spotlight even found enough reassurance to crack a joke.
"At least this one looks convincing, Spangles!"
The walls rippled for a moment, and suddenly every book changed. Instead of dusty leatherbound tomes, there were sex toys, of every colours, size, shape and material imaginable. Some of them wobbled on suction cup bases, some of them vibrated and buzzed across their shelves.
"You make one little mistake, just once and they never let you hear the last of it," sighed Spangles theatrically. Spotlight and Wee-woo chuckled, obviously getting the "in-joke" whatever it was. A wave of the hand, and the books returned, and the mood sobered.
Shimazu moved forward again, and Hunter followed him for a step or two, then froze himself. The big orc stood stock still, and his jaw muscles could be seen flexing as he ground his teeth together. The colour drained from his face, leaving him pallid and corpse-like, and his hands gripped his assault rifle tightly. He, too, trembled, and then between gritted teeth he managed to speak.
"Can't you mages do something?" This seemed to drain him of energy, and he started to shake more violently. Tadibya and Spangles peered into the darkness and concentrated, taking on the glassy-eyed looks of people peering into astral space.
"No, it's not a spell. It's some kind of natural power, there's nothing we can do directly to stop it – whatever it is!"
Kai took a deep breath again, and commanded Hunter to advance, twisting his words to sink deep into his subconscious. Between this, the illusion on the walls and Tadibya's chanting, he seemed to gain some measure of control again, and he resumed his tactical advance.
Spotlight was affected next – shuddering and trembling as he entered the range or vision of whatever their assailant was. Kai's reassuring words were more general, lacking any real knowledge of him as an individual, and were less effective. He pushed through, but looked badly rattled. Wee-woo was not so lucky – her bottom lip trembled, and tears ran down her face as sobs of guilt and disgust shook her, and then she let loose a shrill scream, turned on her heel and ran. Kai shouted at her, but his words had no visible effect, and she ran down the corridor back the way they had came.
Kai realised that this was also likely to affect the rest of the team, and they needed to push the pace, so he strode forwards. As he too crossed a threshold, he too felt fear and panic trying to enter his mind. Warned by the activities of the others, and given chance to mentally prepare himself, he concentrated hard and pushed through. Maybe their assailant had reached the limit of the number of people they could affect. Maybe he was just lucky. Maybe he had a will of steel under the smiling and irreverent façade. Whatever, he pushed through, brushing away the panic trying to burrow into his brain, as if he was brushing away toast crumbs.
"Let's get in there, shall we?"
They pushed forward again. Tadibya headed into the side room to meet with Aswon, and he gestured towards the spear. She examined it carefully, peering at it and extending her astral senses to assense it. It was certainly magical – the whole spear formed a foci for astral power, and she could only guess what powers it contained or how it had been made. It seemed dormant at the moment, and she could not sense any powers or spells on it – no traps or triggers waiting to go off. She said as much to Aswon, but he still looked dubious. With a deep breath, he reached down, paused, closed his eyes for a heartbeat, and then grasped the spear. Nothing happened. Hefting it, he adjusted his grip to the centre of balance, and then hustled out of the room, following the others.
The rest of the team had moved forward a few more steps, and then abruptly they all paused simultaneously – the feelings of dread fear vanished from their minds, as if a switch had been thrown. A moment's respite, and then they burst into action, throwing themselves sideways or ducking, as an incredible deluge of missiles erupted out of the darkness and flew towards them. Pots, tablets, bowls, cups, stray bits of rock – whatever loose material was lying the room was thrown with force across the room to them. Shimazu, Hunter and Spotlight took the brunt of it, raising arms to shield their faces, with debris shattering on their armour and coating them with dust and fragments.
They pushed further into the room, looking for a mage with a levitate spell or some other creature of that nature in the darkness, trying to localise their enemy so they could deal with it. The barrage continued for a few more moments, but when it was clear that it was having little effect against the heavily armed runners, it stopped as suddenly as it had started.
Hunter had spied the form of Blaster, face down on the stone tablet, laid spread-eagled. Rivulets of blood ran down the stone and poured into the water below, and his sobs were faint and barely audible. He charged forward at breakneck speed, taking his chances with the slick flooring. Kai and Tadibya charged after him, Shimazu moved to secure his flank, and Spotlight and Aswon moved around the other side of the large pond to cover the other side of the room. Just as Hunter reached the body and started to lift him, the surface of the water bubbled and roiled, then exploded into a shower of frothing pink foam.
The thing that erupted from the dark liquid was a horror from man's darkest fears. Easily two or three metres long, the part they could see anyway, it was a sickly greenish-blue, covered in chitinous plates, with sharp spines bristling in all directions. Multiple groups of long tendrils were spaced around the creature, flowing out towards the team members with fluid speed. Each of the tendrils were easily three metres long, ending in a series of rasped and sharp looking barbed claws, coloured a milky white. In between each of the tendril pods were clusters of eyes arranged in a hexagonal pattern, large black orbs staring at them with alien menace, each independently moving to look at the intruders to its lair.
Spotlight skidded to a halt, and his massively hewn arms held the Ares Valiant machine gun rock steady. His smartlink sent the firing command, and bullets spat out of the gun in a long steady burst, flying across the room and striking the creature, whatever it was, in a tight group. The creature was made of something unearthly though – not skin, it was incredibly resilient – the rounds impacted but then bounced off at an acute angle, making a high pitched "spang", striking the ceiling and walls and dislodging shards of rock.
Shimazu grasped his sword in two hands, and moved in to engage the creature, covering Hunter from the questing tendrils. On the other side of the room, Aswon quickly slung his rifle and grabbed the bronzed spear, having seen how little damage Spotlight's concentrated burst had done. He moved opposite to Shimazu, and attempted to flank the creature. The room descended in chaos, with people sliding over damp stones as they raced around the room to engage or to avoid the tendrils that whipped and flailed around the dank air. Both Shimazu and Aswon flinched and weaved, desperately trying to get into attack range past the long slender fronds, trying to hack at the beast. Towards the entrance, Tadibya raised her hands, channelling mana through them and trying to levitate the creature out of the water. She grunted with the effort, the creature far heavier and denser than she was expecting, but it started to rise up slowly from the water. Several of the tendrils lashed out on the stonework, adhering somehow to the damp surface, holding it down in position – but this created a small opening through which the others could strike.
Aswon evaded, then skidded forwards and jabbed with a spear, sliding the blade into an eyestalk and triggering a rasping guttural scream. In return a wild swipe from the tendrils took his legs out from under him, dropping him heavily to the floor. He was unhurt, but slightly winded, and had to roll back to avoid a follow up attack whilst he climbed to his feet. Shimazu likewise strode in and smote at the creature, his sword flashing through the air and into the tendrils near the base of the cluster. The blade sawed through three or four tendrils most of the way, causing a frenzied response of thrashing. Hunter got to within a few feet of Kai and almost threw the Orc to him, sliding on his heel and then pushing on his powerful legs to explosively drive himself towards the back room and the rest of the prisoners.
Up on the surface, Marius twitched as his sensor feed picked up Wee-woo, closing on the tripod. What was she doing? She ran towards the turret, grasped the barrel with both hands, and then started to heave, dragging it across the stonework with a shrill screech.
"Nein, nein!" he muttered, and then paused – thinking he could see what she was trying to do. She grabbed the gun and laboriously repositioned it directly in the corridor, aiming down at the cross passage they rest of the team were fighting in. As she did so, he got a better signal on his sensors, and saw the frantic motions of the screamer bands, indicating a chaotic melee taking place. He wavered for a moment, then threw the gun onto automatic, and disconnected from it, pulling his consciousness back up the cable to his deck. After a moment sitting in the overview mode – what most people thought of as the "captain's chair", he connected to his VTOL drone and threw it into start-up mode. The readouts fluctuated wildly as he applied power, barely waiting for the thrusters to hit minimum power before he accelerated into the temple. With a flick of a mental hand, he ramped up the flux, raising his amplifier to high power and blasting the temple with signal. The last thing he wanted was to have a network dropout and take a massive backlash of dump shock as his mind was dropped from the network.
The drone was nose-down, accelerating quickly. Marius focussed hard, reading the data from the sensors and lamenting the lack of fidelity he now had – the difference between his drone and the other teams were marked – along with the lack of range and additional sensing mediums. The drone reached the stairwell, and banked on one side before the nose dropped and he shot down into the darkness, throwing the drone into a tight spiral pattern to navigate around the arches that connected the steps to the central column. There were a few close shaves, but seconds later the drone bottomed out, the VTOL thrusters blasting a sooty patch onto the stonework as he almost belly-flopped into the floor. He picked up speed again, banking hard to get around the sharp turns in the passage and to dodge around Mamma Bear, who was fiddling with equipment, before entering the room with the sentry gun – which Wee-Woo had just about finished moving. She flinched as he entered, then turn and ran back past him, towards Mamma Bear and out of sight. He ignored her and banked into the passage, and was most of the way along before Kai appeared with Blaster in his arms.
Marius throttled back the thrust and went into a hover, and then keyed his intercom.
"Kai, put the body on the drone. It should be able to handle the load if I max out the thrusters, and I can stretcher him out."
He saw Kai nod, and carefully position the body over the drone, gradually letting more of the weight settle over a few seconds. As he did so, Marius increased the thrusters, ramping up the power settings to keep the drone hovering level. He was right at the redline on some of the power systems, and wouldn't be able to do this for long – but hopefully long enough. Kai grabbed a bag of O neg blood from his first aid kit, jabbing the cannula into a handy vein, and then pushed the bag under the body. The weight of the body should continue to push blood into him and keep him stable until they could treat him properly. Two rapid wound packs were applied over the slits in his body to stop the blood flow and then Kai stepped back, clearing the thrust zone. Marius slowly turned the drone, and then with careful precision started the journey back to the surface, considerably slower than the descent. Behind him he sensed Kai turning and running back into the melee…
Back in the room, the chaos continued – Spotlight continuing to try and find a weak spot on the creature with his machine gun, so far without effect, whilst Shimazu and Aswon engaged in melee. Several more glancing wounds had been struck against the creature, and it appeared to be struggling somewhat now – but was still holding its own against them with the advantage of the enormously long and vicious tentacles. Hunter was returning from the back room with a soporific-looking prisoner trailing mutely behind him – neither helping nor hindering.
Aswon gave a great cry of triumph as he managed finally to evade the tendrils with a feint, and then thrust the spear deep into the soft tissue surrounding one of the eye stalks, driving the blade into the flesh and opening up a large gash. His cry of triumph abruptly changed to one of alarm, and then pain though as viscous orange fluid sprayed from the wound in an arc. He instinctively raised his arm to shield his face, and when the blood hit his armour, a loud hiss could be heard, even over the sound of combat. The armour disintegrated in seconds, dropping in globules to the stonework below and continuing to dissolve. Aswon shook frantically, trying to dislodge the armour from him before the vile blood reached his flesh, but the look of pain on his face showed that he wasn't completely successful.
Shimazu saw the beast shudder in pain, and likewise drove in to add his own damage. He too stabbed and slashed at the creature, but forewarned by Aswon's experience he was ready for the explosion of acidic orange blood from the creature when he managed to rupture some organ, and dodged out of the way fluidly. Hunter and Kai ran past him again, going for the last three prisoners, whilst Tadibya continued to struggle with her spell and Spangles appeared to be locked in some effort. She gestured at the people surrounding the creature, and they suddenly sprang into two, then each of those into two more. The mirror images danced back and forth, also attacking the creature. The eye stalks tracked back and forth, trying to keep track of the extra apparitions. Forced to split its attention, Aswon and Shimazu managed to get a few more attacks in, dodging the tendrils and opening up cut after cut in the creature. Orange ichor now dribbled from numerous wounds, and it started to visibly slow in its responses.
A few more haphazard strikes back from the creature and with a great cry of anguish, it suddenly thrashed and sunk into the pool, disappearing out of sight. Tadibya broke out into a sweat, pain creasing her forehead as she tried to prevent it fleeing with her spell, but it was too powerful and too heavy for her to hold. Aswon and Shimazu stood ready, spear and sword held at a guard position in case it returned. Spotlight continued to pump bursts of fire into the water, for whatever effect it might have. The others returned with the remaining prisoners, leading them like docile sheep towards the entrance, their hands still bound in ancient chains of tarnished metal.
As the prisoners reached the threshold of the room, the water started to roil and bubble again, waves driving the water over the edge of the pool and soaking the room to all four walls. With a roar the creature surged up out of the water again, tendrils scything through the air in an arc that threatened to dismember anything close by, forcing the team members back before its fury. The wounds it had taken were gone, the damage repaired somehow, and it moved with lightning speed again. Aswon and Shimazu fell back, shouting at the team to move, to run, and then concentrated all of their focus on the beast.
Something was different this time though… the back carapace of the creature split open, the large plates of thick armour sliding apart and a huge prehensile tail unfolded from within. It arched up and over the creature's back, like a scorpion's stinger. The barb at the end was easily a third of a meter in length, a deep purple in colour with a small globule of bright orange fluid leaking from the end. The tendrils thrashed around, trying to entangle Aswon and Shimazu, to pin them in place and allow the stinger to strike.
"Faster! Go, GO, GO!" they both cried, forcing the team to pick up the pace and frantically fighting to prevent the tendrils from lashing around their limbs. There was no thought of attack now, they were fighting purely defensively, desperate to avoid becoming entangled in the creature's grasp. The thing heaved after them, more of it protruding from the water until they could see hairy legs, too many to count, grasping for purchase on the lip of the trough, ready to propel the creature after them.
The team backed away quickly, pushing the prisoners and remaining just out of reach of the tendrils, running as fast as they could for the corner and the support of the heavy sentry gun…
