Chaos' party: Thread 6.1

Darem smiled up at Jillian, "You guys would've found a way. You're a resourceful group." He stopped and looked around at the statues, "These are really detailed for being so old..." He thought aloud as he stood up.

Fist continued to look along the carved walls. On either side of the temple there were large pillars that looked like they were sending some sort of waves towards the beast above. Right beneath the beast was a carving of a peculiar face with avian properties. No doubt this was the mask they sought. "Hey, I found a mugshot of our target." Fist said as she tapped her knuckle against the engraving of the beast. A spark of energy shot out of her knuckle and left a dark mark on the beast's face. "consider yourself marked big guy"

"I'd like to see you do that to the real thing." Chaos said as he glanced at Fist's work

"I'll do much more than that when we find this thing." She retorted

Darem stood up and walked over to the image where Fist was. "This is it then?" He asked. His eyes widened a little at the mark on the carving, and he looked down at Fist's hands. He went to ask about it before closing his mouth and glancing back at Chaos. "None of my business." He reminded himself silently before looking at the picture of the beast. "'Course it'd be a bird. Not sure how much help I'll be if it's flying." He looked back at Chaos, "I'm sure that weird weapon of yours that you used on the Skeletons would help out quite a bit."

"Maybe a little, but by the look of it, this thing will be like a pea shooter to it." Chaos replied while holding up one of its bullets.

"We just need to get on top of it or something." Fist suggested. "Then we can beat the hell out of it."

"How are you going to get on top of a bird if it's flying around?" Reina asked.

"Well it's must have to swoop down to hit us at some point right? That or we can have this tower of muscle throw us at it." Fist suggested

Chaos looked at the carving and the pillars on either side of the temple. "These two structures on the sides look like they're projecting something towards the creature. Question is, what is it that they're doing to it..." He took a hard look at everything going on in the image and others along the wall for any clues. If any of the symbols were writing he couldn't read it. He had to rely on the images for information.

Darem stepped away from the images and instead looked at the statues. He traced his finger around a few of the edges. "These may be worn and old, but they are a lot more intricate than any other statues I've seen around here." He glanced at the pillars, "They almost feel... unnatural..." He followed them all the way to the abyss above them.

Chaos took one more look at the carvings before heading back towards the platform. "Let's get moving. We have a mask to find." He got onto the platform and waited for the others. "And I think this is going to take us there."

Fist hopped on the platform "Ready when you are."

"Let's go!" Reina jumped onto the platform with Chaos and Fist.

Jillian looked over the edge of the jump. "You sure this thing is gonna hold all of us at once?" She asked, "I know the other ones did but I've always had good faith in gravity to do its job."

Once everyone was on the platform, Chaos stepped on the switch. As it went down, a creaking sound could be briefly heard and the platform started to shake. After a few moments, however, the shaking stopped and the platform became stationary again. "That... wasn't what I anticipated." Chaos said as he lifted his foot.

"Well, maybe we just need to rev it up. It IS an ancient tower right?" Fist said as she started stomping on it repeatedly.

"Right, the magical levitating platforms get their nonexistent gears rusty when unused." Chaos said sarcastically.

"Oh, *stomp* don't be like that. *stomp*" Fist replied as she continued slamming her foot

"You might damage it by slamming it so hard." Chaos argued

Fist kept hitting the heavy switch below her heel. "Break what? *stomp* Those gears you said don't exist? You just *stomp* gotta *stomp* believe! *stomp*"

after the repeated startups, the platform shook harder than the previous times and in the blink of an eye, it started to shoot up into the darkness with great speed. As they were fired up towards the unknown, they were able to see fleeting glimpses of the outdoors through large windows and cracks along the walls. The path up started to suddenly get narrower and narrower and soon they were inside a tunnel. Soon a glimmer of light could be seen above and as the platform started to slow down, they found themselves outside again at the very top of the tower. Surrounding them on all sides was the temple seen in the wall carving. Four pillars were scattered around the temple ruins. Many intricate statues and emblems from the past covered the rooftop temple they found themselves in.

"Told you so." Fist said as she walked off the platform to look around.

Darem stepped off of the platform and looked around. He stepped towards the end of the roof and whistled. "It's uh- Been awhile since I've been up this high." He stopped and looked at a few of the statues, "How do we get this thing's attention?"

Jillian jumped off the platform fast as she could. "I never want to ride another one of those things again." she said looking a like she was going to be sick.

"Are you gonna be okay?" Reina asked her.

"You're going to have to ride it again, unless you feel like jumping back down when we're done." Chaos said as he looked around.

Fist made he way across the courtyard and to one of the pillars. She tapped her knuckle against it and heard a faint tinging sound as if the pillar was hollow. "Huh, these pillars are hollow.
After making a circle around the place, Chaos spoke again. "I'm not sure where this thing is, but I have a feeling we may find some clues in there." He said as he pointed towards the door to the temple. He hiked up the steps and past the strange beastly statues. Once at the top, he stood in front of the stone door that willingly opened at his approach. He motioned for everyone to follow as he went inside. Fist jogged back and followed up into the temple door.

The doors opening on their own sent a chill down Darem's spine. He turned towards the temple and walked through the doors.

Reina shivered, the place looked wrong, smelled wrong and felt wrong on so many levels that she had to fight every instinct in her body telling her to run. She took a first step inside and shivered.

Bump??

The inside of the structure contained similar architecture to the rest of the tower, however, this building had held up significantly better than the rest. Clear markings of a dead language covered the walls and were illuminated by flamed pillars. A wide pillar rested in the center of the room that appeared to go straight to through to the second floor which was accessible via stairs on the left and right of the room. Within the room were also various stone benches and pots filled with miscellaneous objects. A sealed door also appeared on the back wall with no obvious means of opening it.

"Take a look around. See what you can find." Chaos said as he walked around the pillar for clues.

Darem walked inside, "Woah... How could it be preserved this well...?" He looked at the stairs and smiled at Jillian, "No elevator this time at least!" Darem walked to some of the pots and shifted through a few of the items.

Reina briefly looked at the walls, but these words looked nothing like what Chaos had been teaching her.

Jillian sorted through some pots on the other side of the room. "Nothing here." she said.

In the pot Darem searched there rested various items such as a bowl, a staff, a stone torch, and some papers. Jillian's pot contained much of the same minus the torch.

Fist went up one of the staircases and found a room full of mats on the floor circling elevated podium right above where the huge support beam on the first floor was. Weapons were hanging on display across each wall. There was a chest on the far side of the room that she began attempting to pry open.

Darem took the staff and torch out of the pot and began tracing his fingers along the grooves. "Part of me thinks that some of these would make good keepsakes. The other part doesn't want me disturbing their home." He placed them back and walked over to the door, knocking on it a few times. "Whaddya think is back here?"

Darem's knock let him know how thick the door was. It was a solid slab of stone.

"Something these people didn't want easily accessed." Chaos replied as he looked at the door. "Everything here appears so old, but they have all these strange and complex ways to get around. My people didn't have anything like that elevating platform till very recently and even then ours requires ropes and pulleys. The one here just seems to move up on its own."

"Would you believe it to be magic then?" Darem smiled and turned towards Chaos.

"How do you think we're getting through?" Reina asked and she placed a hand on the cold stone door.

"Magic is just another way of saying 'we don't know how it works.' Magic is ignorance" Chaos said as he looked around the walls for loose bricks