05-16-2017, 10:46 AM
The disguised Liberators trudged onward across the dunes, drawing closer to Nebula's desert stronghold, and details began to emerge from behind the rippling veil of desert heat . The swirling, smoky haze was caused by a cyclonic storm-wall of windblown black sand, and as they approached, the darker shapes darting among the waves of wefts of rippling airborne dust began to look less like men and more like monsters, red-eyed, spider-like creatures with many-jointed limbs, swaddled in gold-embroidered rags and riding the winds on flying carpets as deeply purple-black as the ocean at night.
Closer to ground level, the picture wasn't much rosier. When the Primes' progress brought them to a point where the sun was eclipsed by flying sand and the wind began to tear at their fake armor, deeper within the storm the silhouette of the mysterious structure that they had glimpsed from a distance resolved itself into the shape of a massive, ruined temple. Six obsidian statues lined a cracked and pitted avenue of gold-flecked basalt tiles, ten meters high and standing three to a side. They depicted royally-attired men with the horns of rams and arms crossed over their chests. Their were curved swords in their hands, and their faces were as blank and featureless as the Nexus. Only two were completely intact - two more headless, and the remainder sundered and half-buried in the sand. Beyond these guardian idols lay a complex of four flat-topped five-story buildings constructed of the same black stone as the statues. They loomed above the sand, artificial mesas as broad and imminent against the dunes as a glacial wall grinding inevitably down upon virgin savannah, their walls carved with obscene hieroglyphs depicting bizzarre rituals, worn nearly smooth by time and sand, shining amidst the storm.
Electrical cables and energy collectors, little humming boxes and sparking antennae wove among the ruins, draped over fallen stones and nestled atop the bases of broken statues.
At the center of it all stood a single obelisk, thirty meters high. Its base was connected to conduits as big around as a man, and the ancient stone spire crackled with energy so black that it lacked any sense of depth or scale, as though a jagged whole had opened in the world, and decided to masquerade as leaping arcs of lightning. At irregular intervals, the obelisk would discharge a single bolt of sable fire into the sky, pulsing in time with the storm.
With the addition of this new context, the seemingly random motion of the corrupted raiders began to take on a sinister sense of purpose. They were moving into and out of the sandstorm, seemingly unhindered by the wind and the dust, driving trucks and pushing crates mounted on hover-trollies. They manipulated free-standing consoles, fiddled with antennas, and pushed carts laden with dark-chips into and out of the temple's main entrance - a two-story ramp set into the face of the central building, opposite the crumbling promenade with its weathered, faceless guardians.
The liberators passed without comment through the outer layer of Nebula activity, suffering only a passing inspection from one of the carpet-riding arachnid-men as it swooped wide around the edge of the storm-wall before plunging back into the heart of the swirling darkness.
"My plan is working!" stage-whispered Sun Ogong, almost yelling to be heard over the rising gale.
"So far..." Muttered Jim.
Somerled said nothing, intent on maintaining the red-eyed glow that kept them hidden from their enemies.
Then they crossed some invisible threshold, and they were truly within the storm, the driving sand almost like a solid wall, beating against them without mercy. With the sun obscured by swirling dust, the oppressive atmosphere of the ancient necropolis seemed to press down like a physical force, pulsing and vital with stern disapproval of the living - but that was hardly the most urgent problem they faced.
Every corrupted raider, every carpet-riding man-spider, every red-eyed thrall of Nebula, had frozen in its tracks the moment they set foot on the temple grounds, and was now staring directly, silently, at the three disguised Primes. One of them, standing at a console, broke a glass a glass panel with his fist and pressed a red button.
Black energy arced from the central obelisk, earthing itself in the two intact statue-guardians. Stone rumbled, grinding and shifting into an unholy semblance of life ,and the ground shook as they stepped down from their pedestals, raising their swords to the angry skies in a mutual roar of faceless, enraged anguish.
Closer to ground level, the picture wasn't much rosier. When the Primes' progress brought them to a point where the sun was eclipsed by flying sand and the wind began to tear at their fake armor, deeper within the storm the silhouette of the mysterious structure that they had glimpsed from a distance resolved itself into the shape of a massive, ruined temple. Six obsidian statues lined a cracked and pitted avenue of gold-flecked basalt tiles, ten meters high and standing three to a side. They depicted royally-attired men with the horns of rams and arms crossed over their chests. Their were curved swords in their hands, and their faces were as blank and featureless as the Nexus. Only two were completely intact - two more headless, and the remainder sundered and half-buried in the sand. Beyond these guardian idols lay a complex of four flat-topped five-story buildings constructed of the same black stone as the statues. They loomed above the sand, artificial mesas as broad and imminent against the dunes as a glacial wall grinding inevitably down upon virgin savannah, their walls carved with obscene hieroglyphs depicting bizzarre rituals, worn nearly smooth by time and sand, shining amidst the storm.
Electrical cables and energy collectors, little humming boxes and sparking antennae wove among the ruins, draped over fallen stones and nestled atop the bases of broken statues.
At the center of it all stood a single obelisk, thirty meters high. Its base was connected to conduits as big around as a man, and the ancient stone spire crackled with energy so black that it lacked any sense of depth or scale, as though a jagged whole had opened in the world, and decided to masquerade as leaping arcs of lightning. At irregular intervals, the obelisk would discharge a single bolt of sable fire into the sky, pulsing in time with the storm.
With the addition of this new context, the seemingly random motion of the corrupted raiders began to take on a sinister sense of purpose. They were moving into and out of the sandstorm, seemingly unhindered by the wind and the dust, driving trucks and pushing crates mounted on hover-trollies. They manipulated free-standing consoles, fiddled with antennas, and pushed carts laden with dark-chips into and out of the temple's main entrance - a two-story ramp set into the face of the central building, opposite the crumbling promenade with its weathered, faceless guardians.
The liberators passed without comment through the outer layer of Nebula activity, suffering only a passing inspection from one of the carpet-riding arachnid-men as it swooped wide around the edge of the storm-wall before plunging back into the heart of the swirling darkness.
"My plan is working!" stage-whispered Sun Ogong, almost yelling to be heard over the rising gale.
"So far..." Muttered Jim.
Somerled said nothing, intent on maintaining the red-eyed glow that kept them hidden from their enemies.
Then they crossed some invisible threshold, and they were truly within the storm, the driving sand almost like a solid wall, beating against them without mercy. With the sun obscured by swirling dust, the oppressive atmosphere of the ancient necropolis seemed to press down like a physical force, pulsing and vital with stern disapproval of the living - but that was hardly the most urgent problem they faced.
Every corrupted raider, every carpet-riding man-spider, every red-eyed thrall of Nebula, had frozen in its tracks the moment they set foot on the temple grounds, and was now staring directly, silently, at the three disguised Primes. One of them, standing at a console, broke a glass a glass panel with his fist and pressed a red button.
Black energy arced from the central obelisk, earthing itself in the two intact statue-guardians. Stone rumbled, grinding and shifting into an unholy semblance of life ,and the ground shook as they stepped down from their pedestals, raising their swords to the angry skies in a mutual roar of faceless, enraged anguish.
Quote:Time for a challenge!
It was a good effort, but you ended up spotted. And now there's these two giant statues after you!
Said giant statues are extremely tough, and will hit with impressive force. They're fast for their size, but the sheer size also makes them somewhat lumbering and unwieldy. Capitalize on it!
You have to defeat or avoid the giant animated guardians, as well as evade the nebula forces in the area, to breach the temple. The portal to nebula space within this verse is located there.
You have five days and as many posts as necessary, up to 2500 words total to do your thing. Have at it!