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Starbound Flotilla	Before going on this trip, each involved participant will be furnished with a single one-use OXYGEN NANOSKIN, dispensed by the automated dispensers in the facility above the dig site. This will let them avoid any and all suffication in the deep lunar depths and their extremely lacking atmosphere. They're also provided a high-grade low-power industrial drill for digging situations, a hefty battery-powered device that can hang off a belt without much issue. Those without Matter Manipulators of their own can use it... Or those without, you know, other mining abilities.     The Starbounders are still repairing their gear after Friday's raid on the Ice Tower, so they've come here in Durasteel mining and exploration equipment. Moonfin, the fishman, is in elaborate full-body durasteel armor that looks like a powered cross between a diving suit and a samurai's armor, glowing cyan at the faceplate. Biteblade, the humanoid plant, is in durasteel plating with elaborately carved wood and bone ornaments over glowing powered components that glow an intense green. Pavo the bird-girl wears a pirate-aesthetic set of mesoamerican-style armor, with yellow bands of energized fabric linking the pieces and powering them. Albert the monkey-man is wearing elaborate dystopian commando armor reconstructed with a 'rebel spy' aesthetic: A sleeker faceplate, a slimmer form, and a more chaotic design that integrates thin, resilient plates of durasteel, and lines of bright white. George (just plain human) wears a set of futuristic EVA-combat and exploration armor in a suit that glows a gentle red at the faceplate. Seft, the robotic Flotilla member, is wearing full-on medieval knight armor with a soft energized blue glow below the plates on her body, and especially around the eyes. Each has a heavy industrial-yellow two-pronged plasma-cutter-like tool strapped to their side, a Matter Manipulator.     They're going to follow along with the group, providing limited assistance and handling materials pickup and storage for the group if they really need it. Those chunks of Erchius Crystal can get as big as your head, you know, and lugging them around would be a hassle and a half. The Starbounders won't be doing much else, unless called up by someone in particular.     Getting to the bottom of the liquid Erchius mining shaft is a long exercise. They've been digging so rapidly that only the first four fifths of the massive lower shaft actually has freight elevator service. Where that stops at construction for more elevators, they'll have to go down through ladders and complicated staircases. Down here, in the depths of the moon, is where they'll find crystal erchius. At the far base, they reach the place where the drills all stopped. The area gleams with pools of shiny purple untapped liquid erchius, and glitters with dense glassy compounds, all rare fuels. Past the artificial shaft, there's an opening into a natural cave... The Starbounders, now that the primary threat is dealt with, have set up some lighting, and a few haphazardly constructed furnished checkpoints stocked with crates of digging supplies or mining skips for the Erchius. Welcome to the GLITTERING DEPTHS. Most of the threat in this sector is cleared.     Those heading in should decide whether they want to begin dedicated breakup of the dangerous Erchius Clusters that make this area a threat -- most of the largest ones are broken up already, but many still remain -- or head on through the haunted area found further on, to purge the mining site of its dangers permanently. The checkpoints have mapped out the path.
Souji Murasame	Souji is back. In black. Okay, so it's more of a midnight blue like usual, but it was catchy. The corporate heir has had time to clean up and rest from the grueling events in their previous assault upon the mines, and now comes the... cleanup phase. The return on investment of this location continues to be phenomenal, in his estimation, even with the potentially fatal events that can befall someone at any time when dealing with larger Erchius clusters. The corporate heir considers their options as they prepare the assault. Considering the situation, dispersing the remaining psionic influence in the area would make things much safer for the group. Without the resonance influencing the other clusters, they would then be rendered safe to collect and research. After all, Souji doesn't do mining himself unless it is necessary. He has /people/ for that. He strides forward into the temple area, preparing to do battle with what remains of these warlike Hylotl impressions. He has to admit, the effort is quite exhilirating. It is quite an... experience.
Corona Arclite	Corona Arclite has little problem with some post action clean-up, and she's come fully geared for it. Smashing stuff or fighting more of those freakish reminants, doesn't matter which to her. She takes a few practice swings with her hammer to warm up. Though she's still got the drill too, just to be prepared either way.
Alexis Maaka	Maaka's got herself a new, fancy sword to call a trophy. Or a tool. Whichever is more convienent at the time.     She's currently scouting ahead as usual, trying to get a good fix upon remaining Disphotics.     Having opted for cleanup ops, she's upgraded her weapons for now, with her EM-GASH coilgun in a battle rifle configuration. It's served her well in the past, and she'll need the hyper-velocity slugs in engaging these crystaline warriors.     Slung on her back is the drill, just in case. There's no point not being prepared for either mining or even clearing a path if necessary.
Steve	Regretfully having missed a lot of the action before, due to prior engagements involving jerks in red armor that needed taking care of, Steve did not intend to do so again. Having packed up after some relaxation farming earlier in the day, he is thankfully cleaned up a bit by the time he comes to pay a visit to the moon mine. Instead of his thaumically-enhanced robes, he's dressed a bit more low tech today, opting instead for some mere iron armor. It looks thoroughly generic, in contrast to some of the elaborate pieces the Flotilla members wear. "Hey, is this the place," he wonders aloud, emerging from whatever contrivance allows access here, warpgate or otherwise, and post-donning of the thin layer of pressurized atmosphere. "The stone here. It has a good feeling to it. Maybe, when I'm ready to retire, I can build a tomb on my own moon."     He does not avail himself of the advanced mining technologies available, instead seeming to have a weathered and etched iron pickaxe at his side. A wand, a conspicuous length of dark wood, is fastened to the opposite side, at his hip, though since he head this was a cleanup operation, he doesn't expect to see much use of it. He does take a moment to scratch lightly as his beard, however, tilting the iron helmet perched atop his head askew as he glances over all of the Flotilla members in the vicinity. "Hmm, some of you look different than you sounded on the radio. But, I'm not judgin'. Just point me at what needs digging and I'll take it from there." He spares a glance at some of the seemingly more combat-ready visitors, at that, "Looks like we've got security well in hand, haha. Of course, if there's trouble, just holler and I can help with that, too."
Rory White	There is LIGHT down here. And WIRELESS NETWORKING.     Working day and night (for whatever that means on a moon...), Rory's Delta Fork and some AIs have overseen the installation of some basic infrastructure running down through the tunnels. There are now direction signs, electric lights, surveillance cameras and other digital amenities all over the place.     There's also the high-tech equiavlent to a port-a-potty down in the Glittering Depths, over in a corner of the cavern. Or rather, a receptable for biological waste. Because no space suit can handle that forever, yeesh.     Proper MESH ACCESS is also provided, with the typical compatabilities needed for Flotilla activities. In short, nobody will have problems accessing wireless stuff down here.     "The Disphotic Remnant... what a confusing encounter. I'm not sure I want to know how any of that worked." States Rory, who's just enjoying the sight of the Erchius crystals and glittering pools. Carefully. Best not to look TOOOOOOO closely, apparently.
Kyra Hyral	Having attended a few of the Flotilla's missions before, Kyra's pretty familiar with the nanoskin technology. She's still even kind of impressed by it! Kyra, of course, has come strapped with her own gear to, including some of her own personal explosives-not that many of them will function in a vacuum without oxygen. The GLEAMING GRENADIER'S CURE-ALL is also on her, just in case more Erchius crystal zombies pop up and harass the mining team. It also seems that Kyra's gotten her wearable camera repaired because she's wearing it right now. It might even be a newer model since the headband looks sleeker and the camera apature less bulky. It still emits a red glow of light to indicate that it's on.     Kyra follows along towards the back of the group, as per a suggestion from Septette a few days ago, so she can monitor everyone and drop targeted healing as needed. She herself had voiced several times during the trip down that she's interested in purging the rest of the caverns of their dangers. After all, she's not a mining expert, just a demolition expert, and while breaking up the bigger chunks is a whole lot of fun, the girl needs some variety.     As Souji heads off, Kyra follows-willingly at that. She doesn't say anything to him-she doesn't really need to since Souji can no doubt sense her terrible Hyral presence.
Kotone Yamakawa	Kotone Yamakawa is also back and is ready for mining and seeking what other things she can dig up here there could be a lot of interesing things to loot and she's just hoping to get some good mining in all things considered. She seemed suited up for mining and seemed much more relaxed but she was still armed with the laser rifle she wasn't foolish there might be more nasty things going on that she's not aware of. "Well things over shall we end up seeing what we find here? I'm actually excited to go digging more than anything else!"
Zwei	The Shiva affair is pretty much over with, the Disphotic Remnant has been taken care of, and all that really remains right now is cleanup. That defaults to the state of 'free time to kill', but then last time had been supposedly nothing but a quick, exploratory mining trip, and look how that had turned out. That means today it's Weiss /and/ Asche that are venturing into the depths of the moon/age old psionic shrine to xenophobic homicidal rage. Hopefully both of them won't actually be needed, but operations elsewhere are pretty slow right now, so it's not like there's much else to do.     As usual, neither of them are carrying anything that isn't already integrated kit, distinguishable mostly by height, silhouette and opposing viridian and vermilion highlights. "That's an odd thing to be excited about." Says Weiss. "And likely that of which to pay least mind" continues Asche. Though both spare what is ostensibly a glance, though in reality the equivalent of several hours of intense inspection, it's predictably the former that greets Steve. "Hey! The new guy! Gonna mine erchius crystal oldschool huh?" Her eyes go to the pickaxe, clearly visible without the faceplate of her helmet polarized.
Starbound Flotilla	"Mr. Murasame. A pleasure to once more have you render your assistance." Moonfin says. It looks like he'll be accompanying the people heading into the further reaches, where combat is going to happen. Like before, heading through the area leads to those rear chambers where things become more ornate and ceremonial, where things have a much more distinctly Hylotl appearance. Stone lanterns, stylish pools and rock gardens, well-tended shrines, and similar ancient structures lead towards the back. Also notable are many, many weapon racks, armor racks, the the frequent signs of battle. Looks like this area's been cleared out, for the most part...     "The central shrine was neutralized. Garrison is as the back, opposite our entry." Albert is also along for the ride, with Kyra as always. "Stealth works in our favor. They've lost central networking. Only personal perception matters for them now. No more swarming masses." Rory's mapping will have detected a much larger chamber at the back, a natural open space that's particularly wide. "Where more of the Erchius warriors come from. Undirected, wandering. Worker hazard. Purge the source."     "Aye, best ye cut them down. The Erchius from 'em has a mighty value, ye know, heavy profit we can make." Pavo has come along as well! She sticks somewhere near Maaka, sword drawn. Looks like the Starbound Flotilla is splitting half and half for today.     The mapping in this direction shows that the garrison -- a larger structure built into the shrine superstructure adjacent here -- has several tunnels that can be used to take an alternate path in, if the front door of sorts is undesired. Time to pick where to head! Those alternate paths are likely populated with stray warriors, but the front is likely where they're most concentrated...
Alexis Maaka	It seems like the Hylotl took a lot of time to make sure their installations were as presentable as possible. Even after all this time, this place looks immaculate. Alexis finds it a bit corny herself, but she can't deny the fishmen know how to make their stuff last.     Nodding to Pavo, she raises her coilgun as she begins to advance via one of the tunnels, motioning for the Avian's attention. "Stick by my side, we'll be better of covering one another." Alexis says, before continuing towards the garrison. "Flanking might give us the element of surprise on any remnants still alive."
Kyra Hyral	"Ooh." Kyra intones. There are a scattering of places on her world that bare similar architecture and Titan had the market cornered on building amazing things underground. Still, to see the combination of the two in what was supposed to be an undiscovered area is always exciting, "It's like cracking open a lost dungeon, eh. Good to know that these zombie things can be stripped of their Erchius too. Wouldn't want any to go to waste~"     As usual, she sticks close to Albert, who has proven on numerous occasions that he is a very good tank. "Anyway, I don't suppose it would be possible to slip a trap at the front door, just in case some would like to pop out and bother our miners while we go through those side tunnels?"     From one of her belts, Kyra pops off a device that looks a lot like a grenade mashed up with an egg timer.
Starbound Flotilla	The miners, on the other hand, such as Steve, Zwei, Kotone, and Rory, will find a much less dangerous time. As they progress into the interior, the zones encased by the sacred ground, centered around that shrine structure in the middle, are densely packed with the crystals. They are an odd structure: Six faces, always facing the same direction, often linking to each other in unusual, pseudo-organic configurations. Some of the inner regions, lit by stone lamps and Rory's lighting, have entire walls or floors composed of those crystals! Their job is to break up heavy clusters of them, but that takes very dedicated mining... Much less than it takes for just removing the moonstone around them!     Great pools of liquid erchius are here, yes, the purple fluid glows gently, just like the crystal. Now that proper lighting is installed, the ceiling itself seems starry. For now, the gang have little in the way of beginning their breakup, experimentation, or investigation. Nearby stations feature all the tools necessary to test its properties, too!     Rory closely examines the erchius... Without interaction, without something affecting it, the absolute vacuum makes it utterly still, giving it a glassy surface.     "Moon tomb, huh?" George, the aged human member, grins. "Don't worry, those guys can probably handle it, you seem more like the mining type. Oldschool, huh? Well, no school like it. As for the looks? Yeah, probably. Comes with the whole alien integration thing."     "Concerned. Nobody truly knows how Erchius works. I am the Flotilla's engineer for the material, and even I don't understand most applications..." Then she's more cheerful to Kotone, her eye-visor flickering to a ^_^. "Affirming. The digging itself should be safe, and I am excited to find more too."     "Two metal friend!" Biteblade is going to go hang out with Zwei. "You do huntsss, do talk, but mine too? Alwaysss thought, maybe indussstry not you. Wanna do experiment? We only show you liquid before, Floran wanna see what ssscience-magic you do with cryssstal!" Eager chirpy hiss noises!
Souji Murasame	"I am always happy to be of service, Moonfin." Souji replies without actually sounding happy. Or angry. Or much of anything, relly. But then Souji handles almsot everything in a cool, businesslike tone. Except for Kyra. The presence of the Hyral scion casts a faint but perceptable edge to Souji's stance, and one can practically visualize the faint waves of disdain and scorn being projected towards Kyra. Maybe Rory can work on a filter for it sometime and get a hilarious light show out of it. He refuses to let this put him off his stride, however. He has Erchius abominations to cleanse. "You are absolutely correct, Pavo. We cannot allow this to go to waste." As they approach the danger zone, Souji glances over his shoulder towards Kyra. "Try to keep your mind under control. They respond to it. I know it will be difficult for you, but I am sure you can manage." Barb delivered, Souji chooses an alternative entrance. He might be a Samurai, but his sense of honor does not really classify these beings as worthy of anything but extermination. If it were up to him, Isamu would already be howling in whatever abyss that waits for dispersed psionic patterns, but this situation is beneficial in the end. "Maaka, signal when you breach the area. I will enter from an alternate path and we can begin."
Steve	With a clear playfulness to his voice, Steve gives a broad grin alternately to Weiss and George, while giving a rugged pat of the pickaxe, proclaiming boldly, "What're you calling old and no school? This here's the Extract-o-Tron 3500." After a few moments of the false bravado, he gives a soft chuckle, lowering his voice accordingly as he allows, "Nah, it's just a pick. I do have a magical bauble for mining, but for lettin' off some steam, nothing beats getting your own hands dirty." He does give a thoughtful tap to his chin, though, at both Weiss and Asche, "Hmm. Your voice...s, are familiar. Yeah, I definitely remember from the radio. My name's Steve." He also glances beyond them, to Kotone, and calls over, "Hey, you're one of the ones that helped with those devils the other day. Thanks for that, by the way. Come on back to Flat Earth anytime. Always got plenty of chores that need doing."     Now that teams are splitting up, and now that some of the meeting and greeting is done, though, it's on to business. He removes the pickaxe from its looped binding, giving it a few test swings with his muscular arms, and thankfully not in the immediate area of anyone else's person, as he paces forward. The gesture causes the plates of his crude armor to creak a bit, indicating a lack of recent use. Moving itself takes a bit of getting used to, as the lower gravity has his steps a bit more spritely than normal. "Maybe I should have made something out of diamond for this," he mutters under his breath, but he hasn't met many rocks that is a match for his iron. If he can get enough of it loose, and of a good enough grade, maybe he can even test an 'Erchius pickaxe', right in the field. The thought brings another fresh grin to his face. "That's what's exciting, though, isn't it," he figures? "Once you've figured out everything about something, it's just another rock. Before you know it you're sleeping on an Erchius bed, and eatin' off of an Erchius dinner plate."     He does pause in his subtly bouncing steps, though, to give a glance at the liquid version of the stuff. From his nebulous inventory, he withdraws an honest to goodness iron bucket, and some string, and looks to be aiming to lower it down to scoop some of it up. They did say it probably wasn't going to be dangerous here, after all.
Corona Arclite	"Welp, reckon it's time to go deal with that 'hazard'," Corona pauses to set down her hammer, and pull her work goggles back up over her eyes, then pick it up again and rest the Breaker on her shoulder as she strides along the others for the 'security' group. She's good at both fighting and mining, so it's probably not a bad idea to have a capable sort for both jobs in case they come across something while dealing with the lingering warriors. As for where to go? Straight to the point as usual Corona just heads for the 'front doors' as it were, unbothered if she's followed or the others go take the alternate tunnels. Far from foolish though, she deploys a couple of her clockwork mini-turrets to the sides of the passage before stopping and hefting her hammer back off her shoulder again and into a ready position. "Y'all best come out, ya weirdspace warriors! This here be yer eviction notice, so come get somma it!"
Starbound Flotilla	Pavo gives a nod to Maaka, grinning. "So long as I get half the loot, yer gonna have sides covered like an ironside, tin lass." The bird moves ahead with Alexis now! The tunnel system just ahead of the garrison has several wandering Erchius warriors within. Maaka's tactical focus will be able to clear them out, since they're completely unaware... But remember, they have multiple shards that need breaking! Maaka will need to devise a tactic to immediately destroy a small handful of shard clusters on each warrior before one further ahead might get alerted, using the shrine's terrain and structures, her tools, and Pavo's assistance. If she can do that, the path to the garrison can be cleared in a stealthy, tactical way!
Starbound Flotilla	Albert grunts heavily, a wordless affirmation. "Effective idea." He says, tersely, giving an approving nod. "Designating locations. We have an engineer following up. Will stop any wanderers." Then he offers some explanation. "Lost for a long time. Surviving member of the Hylotl Diphotic Order escaped here. Meditated until they died. Built a shrine to their hate. Source of the Erchius Warriors." Very clinical. Very matter of fact. He's going to screen behind Maaka. He won't need healing for his few crushing hammerblows, intended to utterly annihilate the few Erchius Warriors that Maaka doesn't catch, he'll need buffing. Kyra gets to finally see one of the Erchius Warriors: Steel in the shape of a samurai's armor. Is there a body inside? Maybe, but all that's known is that the three eyes in the visor between the helm and the facemask glow with inhuman purple light, they have tremendous erchius crystal clusters lodged in their torsos, and their entire body is obfuscated. They are also HEAVILY armed, with japanese-style blades of all kinds and a large bow for each.
Alexis Maaka	"Deal." Alexis grins back, although she can't exactly be seen underneath that facemask of hers. Her body language handles that for her though, as she claps the Avian on the shoulder before advancing.     She slings her rifle on her back, crawling amid cover as she spies the Erchius warriors. "Lotta guys up ahead." Alexis comms Pavo, motioning for the birdgirl to take the left flank. Scanning for the crystal shards on each of the warriors, Alexis narrows her eyes before she draws her Kama pistol. Affixing a suppressor to the muzzle, she suddenly lunges at the warrior before firing multiple shots, aiming for the embedded shards. "Now!"
Kotone Yamakawa	Kotone Yamakawa also does wonder how the lamps are working down here she's just not going to ask about it but she clealry was staring here too. With the lighting up she sees the liquid which would make good fuel. Kotone knew that much and she was focusing on making sure she got enough for her ship to fuel it and make sure it's tanks were entirely topped off. It could run on other things or so she'd checked with S.A.I.L. but this stuff was the best for it. "It should be fun Seft and we might dig up some otherthings also I heard from Slipbolt, they seem to be looking for work I might hire them on I could use a second set of hands with the planned upgrades for the Bluenose. I might be able to run it on my own but I'd be hititng apoint soon where I'd have to jack in and control it all directly. Heh I still need to take you up on trying to do that with your ship, Rory. To see if I could even handle that." She's drilling away getting crystal for the moment. She does also have a few of her hover drones hanging about. "Hello Steve, and nothing wrong with a Pick for small scale mining honestly. Good to see you again, Steve. Yes I was one of the ones no problem and I think I will come take a look at some point. When I get a moment."
Starbound Flotilla	Getting to the entry point that Souji needs to set up means that he'll have to face down a small trio of scattered Erchius Warriors. With less chaos to the experience, he'll have a much easier time. He'll manage to circle around while only running into those three, though, who have wandered most erratically. Despite Souji's regard for them as nothing worth more than extermination, they each insist on the proper procedure for such things. While they may wander around utterly aimlessly, kneeling at shrines at random, and similar suchlike, each will stand as soon as Souji makes himself known, wordlessly challenging him with a pointed blade, and automatically inviting him to a duel. These are less suicidal than before, though, and have less coordination. Their speed is also debuffed because of Souji's mental clarity! It's not likely to slow Souji down too much... but Hylotl swordplay is still quite skilled and these are determined goddamn Erchiusoids.     Eventually he'll come to a chamber opening up onto the upper reaches of the garrison chamber. It's unlit in here; looks like he can jump onto the roof of the expansive structure, but seeing beyond that range won't be productive.
Rory White	Far behind the groups, the COGNIZANT ODYSSEY deploys a Synthmorph with a Delta Fork of Rory loaded and a handful of insect-legged drones equipped for heavy drilling and mining. There's no way they'll be half as fast as the Core members with their Matter Manipulators, but moon rock is not terribly dense and the gravity is favorable. The begin the work of continuing the main access and extending the elevator shaft.     But Rory Prime's standing near Kotone, armed with a drill in one arm and a... shield in the other. Another insect-legged drone (she favors them for rough terrain) has an assortment of extended arms, including drills and claws. The shield is NO DOUBT in there in case of trouble.     Which is also why she's in her battlesuit this time. Just in case.     THIS PLACE IS NOT SAFE, she's sure of it.     Rory's drone - doubtless under her personal direct control - begins the work of drilling around crystals, trying to free them from the rock without damaging them.     "A pick is rather... antiquated, isn't it?" She has never met Steve before, and his proclamation is rather confusing. ".. Would you like a Diamond pickaxe? I could fabricate one within an hour or two! ... not terribly fast, I know... nanite fabrication is slower than the main Flotilla technology." Something that irritates her. Maybe when she has more time to study it!~
Starbound Flotilla	"Heh. Maybe we'll figure it out, sure! I mean, the stuff practically hates people, so I'll probably not be sleeping on it, but we'll figure out why it's such a pissy bitch all the time." George laughs a bit at Steve's joking there. It also looks like he can use his mining experience to separate the crystals into a craftable shape! Nearby workbenches should suffice for getting something worked out, if he wants to try an Erchius Pickaxe!     The erchius reacts very strangely to Steve's dipping. It behaves much like normal liquid, of course, once it's sloshed into that iron bucket. But the ripples created by dipping the bucket into the pool of liquid erchius are actually running in /reverse/. They ripple in towards where Steve dips his bucket before it makes contact. Steve's intuition as a miner will also detect a very oil-like nature to it, or something with a similarly effective fuel content. It's possible that this may have some productive uses as fuel, alongside its odd effects on spacetime.
Zwei	Pretty predictably, with two groups serving two different purposes, after briefly greeting up, Zwei splits up. The joy of being able to be in two places at the same time. Even more predictably, the towering Asche joins those about the assault the garrison, where his combat abilities will be put to beater use, whilst Weiss joins the mining expedition in order to use her superior scanners and sensors to research the material better.     "There is no compelling reason to charge straight to the gate, even if we are able to do so." The former says, feet crunching into the loose moonrock as his looming form comes close to scraping the ceiling of some tunnels. "If you have the means, then make them ready now. Even the most overt will only serve to warn us of a possible breach of the lines. I will do no different." Go ahead Kyra, because the Armiger seems to think it's a smart idea. As usual, Asche fabricates the equipment out of the rock itself, clumps of wall material fizzling, melting and condensing into compact black disc and sphere shaped objects that could probably be presumed to be explosives, swiftly re-buried in a layer of the original material just thin enough to allow short wavelength trigger beams to penetrate through and lace the corridor. Given enough time, some sort of angular, bladelike pylon joins them further back, stabbed into the ground on three points. "Do not worry about IFF concerns. Uploading coordinates."     "Ever heard a short rant that ends with 'specialization is for insects'~?" Weiss asks Biteblade. "Of course I want to see the same thing too! Besides the fact that this arrangement lets me keep my eye on everyone at once, industry is great when it's something I don't already know how to build!" She waves almost flippantly at Steve. "You've got a good memory! Not a lot of people pay all that much attention until they absolutely have to. I'll admit it makes me unsympathetic when I have to work against them." She watches with a remarkable level of intentness for seeing someone swing a pickaxe around and producing an ordinary iron bucket, even if it is from nowhere. Neither Armiger actually has entirely specialized mining equipment, but for the time being, breaking regular rock apart to dislodge chunks of discrete crystal is a very simple task, and so Weiss simply unfolds her wrist-integrated PDW, cycling it to a pinpoint, relatively low yield laser and beginning the process of carving through fine seams of rock, vapourizing the moonstuff down to the molecule off the erchius. Slower than she needs to necessarily be, but there seems to be no rush.
Starbound Flotilla	Albert seems to have designated some especially convenient points for Corona to leave her turrets, in accordance with Kyra's suggestion. The armored Erchiusoids around the entry point are already dead, meaning she has plenty of time to set up turrets and get them safely in place! And then the shouts! This particular brand of Erchius warrior seems quite prone to challenges! When she calls that out, it becomes clear that some of them don't even have to wander on-foot at all! A handful are flickering into existence very suddenly in the chamber, rapidly skipping the entire process of walking over here to Corona!! Meanwhile, ahead, with some of Kyra and Maaka's scouting, it turns out that some targets are simply flickering out of existence, over to her...     Automated defenses have a certain sort of usefulness. While the Erchius Warriors are extremely resistant to automated assault -- they flicker around it quite rapidly, since there's no quantum observer behind the attack itself! -- they'll suffer the damage fully if they're engaged in combat with Corona herself! Which they will be soon; they're rushing her down, one by one, with drawn blade, swinging viciously.
Kyra Hyral	Kyra starts fiddling with the device in her hand and sets it down, following the encouragemen tof the trap idea. One of the ends of the egg is pointed across the length of the door. "Motion sensor." she explains, "When something walks through it, the cryogrenade will get set off." Very carefully, Kyra backs away. "It's indescriminate so don't cross the threshold if you can help it."     Albert explains some of the details about their aggressors: "Why hate though?" Kyra frowns, "I thought the point of meditation was to gain inner peace or something along those lines?" As they walk along, Kyra waves her right hand around, scattering green shimmers around those immediately in front of her. First Albert, then Maaka are bestowed with a Protect spell that will make their tanking even tankier. Since Alexis is also in the attacker position, Kyra drops a spell known as Bravery on her, which provides all around improvement to physical prowess.     Kyra peeks around Albert, angling her head so her camera picks up the Erchius Warriors in action. "Oh wow. Crystal samurai zombies. Very nice!" she says appreciatively, reaching for her normal Galiandan gun to arm herself. Very carefully, she fires an experimental shot at one of the Erchius Warriors to see if her bullets can actually penetrate the armor and/or crystals.
Souji Murasame	The warriors choose to face him in single combat. Perhaps if they fought in a group, they would have had a chance. Nevertheless, Souji does offer them one honor: "Murasame. It is time to feed." The Hungry Blade leaves its sheath, and with laser-focus and a lifetime of honed talents in his family style, Souji sets to cleaving into his opponents. While they might not have blood, they are still enemies, and while Souji has little care for the creed of the Disphotic remnants, he does respect the level of discipline they possess. What he does not do, is hold back. He strikes with lethal intent, aiming directly for exposed Erchius clusters to shatter them with his own blade in lieu of vital organs. He remembers how dangerous these beings are, and he cannot allow his focus to waver, or to underestimate them. It is by the second opponent that he has cast Haste upon himself to augment his speed, and by the third, the Murasame Blade crackles with lightning, striking with additional elemental force. In the aftermath, Souji spares the trio a moment to salute them with his blade before he moves on, his blade still unsheathed. It has been drawn, and he will not put it back until his job is complete. As he moves on, He drinks Potions to help deal with the several cuts he sustained. It would not do to progress significantly injured. He frowns at the unlit area, trying to control his instinctive expectations. In a place like this, in the face of the dark unknown, the mind can go wild with considerations and phantoms... and such a thing could be lethal or worse in a cave full of Erchius. With a grunt, he leaps onto the roof of the structure, and begins walking along it to look for signs of more enemies or what may be occurring in the area.
Steve	That's mighty peculiar! While he had heard it described over the radio, to actually see it with his own eyes is another matter. It's almost like it's a liquid, but plays by its own rules, and as he hauls it back up he recognizes with his intuition that this place's lower gravity wouldn't account for those properties. Also, that viscosity, and apparent energy density. Hmm. "This should be interesting to mess with," he figures, standing back up, and assuming no reality-breaking fluid shenanigans, will place it back into his inventory, for later analysis. It's only after a moment, and getting his back set up straight with a light stretch and a few pops -- and creaks of metal plate -- that he gives a glance to Rory. He honestly looks a bit bewildered for just a moment, before he gives a glance at some of the nearby workstations, that look like a relatively good approximation of what he's used to.     "Huh? It takes that long?" Looks like these crafting-heavy societies are just naturally acclimated to rapid prototyping. After a moment, his rudimentary sense of politeness kicks in, realizing how that must have sounded, "I mean, I appreciate your offer, but I'm pretty used to cobbling things together. Just gotta find the right kind of material." With that, he once again gets his iron pickaxe in hand, and begins carving away at the moonstone around a nearby crystal cluster. When he 'mines', it is in large masses, which separate with perhaps surprising precision given the crudeness of the tool in his hand. While he digs, he engages in conversation with George on it, "You got rocks that have tempers? I'm glad none of them back home ever talk back to me." If they did, the storage room would be a mad house. "And, well," he tilts his head back towards Weiss while freeing a crystal from its space, "Didn't get to do much socializing before the Ritual of Unification, so I guess I still treasure it a bit more than some."     With a large sample in hand, he turns it over a few times, blowing away some dust...momentarily baffled that it doesn't actually do anything, before he realizes with a 'heh', "Right, breath doesn't go that far in here." He turns next to the workstations nearby, and gets to work giving a good look over this first bit, to prepare for *really* tearing into the cave walls.
Corona Arclite	.. Okay, them BAMFing in wasn't entirely expected, but considering the reality warping effect Erchius is known to have, not really a surprise, either. Though the teleporting may make the automated turrets take a few moments to recalibrate to their presence and start tracking them. Giving them an ample chance to blink-rush towards the cosmic cowgirl. However Corona is quite familiar in dealing with opponents bigger, meaner and tougher than she is. The first warrior suddenly appearing right in front of her lands a solid blow with his sword swing, but she twists with the hit to land back on her feet in a skidding stance afterwards, and spring over the next attacker. She actually lands on his back for a moment, so he might have to watch out for one of his allies when they swing for her and the nible foxgirl jumps away again. This time however when she comes to the ground its with the Corona Breaker bared, slamming it to the ground as she does and sending a shockwave of pulsarium energy radiating outward from her landing. That should send some of the warriors briefly reeling. The energy burst is also what triggers the turrets' firing mechanism and they start pelting out volleys of small but high penetration rounds, trying to catch the echriusoids while they're trying to either recover from or dodge around Corona's blastwave.
Starbound Flotilla	Pavo has her own weapon, a heavy plasma rifle. You can't really suppress the sound of plasma blasting off, but it's sure not as loud as a normal gunshot in the first place. It also means there's heavy bursts of explosive light at the back of each foe to go with the more precise shots, slamming them into the ground instantly without issue. Looks like Alexis can clear up most of the front end without too much issue. Oddly, one or two even disappear, flickering off to go fight Corona... Alexis will only need to deal with four or so, over the course of several rooms. When she deals with the last, though...     There's a smashing sound just as she fires the last shot. A massive crater has been punched in the cave wall just next to her head. Even her cyborg-enhanced vision didn't detect its movements. "Kluex damn--!" Pavo is already calling out, pointing her gun around in a paranoid way. "Watch yer head, lass." They're getting to the front of the garrison now, where more proper building structures are, albeit ancient sorts. The entire area is unlit, utterly dark. Maybe nightvision...?
Starbound Flotilla	Rory can outpace the individual miners with her swarms, of course. While they're more speedy separating the clusters from the walls, they're not nearly as speedy in separating the clusters from themselves. It'll be helpful to get the group more consistent access on the clusters, and the non-clustered Erchius is going to be far quicker to acquire now! That should make things far easier, and get a huge volume on into the skips, down the rails, and up the elevator shaft!
Alexis Maaka	"Whoa!" Alexis jumps in place as she sees the hole punched in the wall. "Check fire next time, I don't want my face burnt off on accident down here." She tells the Avian, before she reloads her weapon. Switching to night vision, she continues to the garrison proper. The rest of the guardians are taken down along the way. "Can you see anything in here, Pavo?" She asks, leveling her pistol in an alert fashion as she approaches the structures.
Starbound Flotilla	Asche heads to the combat zone. He's going to meet up with Corona, and his buried mines means she can probably move those turrets up too. Or they might. One goes off right behind him after it's set, and yet, it shouldn't have. He will have detected nothing but an audible noise and a crater-like impact where he just was, slamming into where the mine was placed. The trap might have caught whatever was responsible for that, though; several other craters appear in the next nanosecond around the tunnel just next to the it, seemingly frustrated by the miss, and progressing back towards the garrison, towards where Asche's about to meet up with Corona...
Starbound Flotilla	"Huuuuhhhh! Isss right. Two metal friend know how to do many thingsss, but learn more, do more, alwaysss good. Guesss not sssee you find sssomething you ever wanna mine before! Maybe sssomeday, you figure out how to make Erchiusss, not have to mine, but now, you hang out with Floran, be friend." Not likely, but Biteblade is a huge fan of Zwei, apparently, and totally thinks it's possible. "Will help!" And of course, Biteblade gets to work with their matter manipulator, breaking apart clusters where Weiss has separated them from the ground.
Starbound Flotilla	The Erchius Warriors have several large crystals, often at their back. Albert speaks as he finishes one. "Despising the Floran that massacred their homeworld. Don't know how they did it. Infused the erchius with hatred. Break the clusters, disperse the psionic buildup. They wanted to build an army out of this." Albert grunts in a disapproving way. "Only one good way to build an army. Not it." He holds back on one of them, letting Kyra strike just before he does! The standard ballistics do shatter the Warrior Erchius clusters into seperate shards, and Kyra collapses the foe while it's turned away. Albert can use her protect spell to effectively body-check the next flickering foe that rushes forward, slamming them into the tunnel wall before smashing their crystals open. He always leaves half for Kyra to pocket. "Moonfin says meditation's about clearing your mind of all distraction. Doesn't mean you're always clearing it for pea--."     The cryogrenade goes off, far behind them. Right before something seems frozen, inches from Kyra. A humanoid shape, finned... No! There's a puddle of melted water now, and the humanoid shape is gone, replaced by a tremendous crater in the floor where the water pools. Albert wordlessly assumes a much more defensive posture... It's about this time that Kyra gets to where Alexis is, in the absolutely dark garrison chamber.
Rory White	"Well... yes. Maybe I should start building some industrial fabricators." Rory muses. But she's distracted by the BIZARE mining style Steve is displaying. How.... HOW is he doing that with a pickaxe?     Freaky. She's totally recording this to show off later. The Argonauts will get a KICK out of it.     Other thought threads manage the drones and forks. It's one of her strengths, far more than physical prowess. Dozens of drones flood into the tunnels from the Cognizant Odyssey's drone bay, configured with the insectile leg arrangement and manipulator arms. Mathematical algorithms guide their motions in unnatural-looking but highly efficient paths through the chambers and across the walls.     And they all set to mining, accomplishing with quantity what Rory cannot in skill or quality. Bulk materials are hauled away and piled near the elevator shaft.     Meanwhile, construction has begun on a material separator. Just a recyling-specialized nanofab that doesn't do anything fabbing. Not the fastest method of churning through stuff for valuable minerals, but space-efficient!
Steve	After a bit of looking over things, and no small amount of looking at how others are going about it, Steve has finally figure out this Erchius thing. Or, at least, enough for how to continue to extract it. With Rory's swarms presumably helping out with getting the moon's soil out of the way, he's more than content to get back at the precious Erchius, itself, in a moment. "Hmmm, pretty handy, having all that help to clear out all the overburden," he figures, scratching at his beard stubble again. "I don't know if I could trust mining important things to golems, but if it's just ordinary rock..." The gears are starting to turn, but he momentarily glances back to his workstation. Puzzling through it for a moment, he pulls a hunk of wood from his inventory -- since you never leave home without it. Using the workspace to subdivide it into several lengths of wood, he seems to select the ones of best quality, before arranging the Erchius and wood into the T-shape he's familiar with. Whether it works or not is left up to local physics.     Picking up an earlier thread of conversation, from before he got distracted, he also glances to Kotone while waiting to see if this will 'meld'. Or fuse into a lump. Or explode. He really has no idea how this will work in this world and with this material. Regardless, he glances over to Kotone with his arms crossed, "There's a lot of digging that needs done in the Flat Earth, too, of course. And you know, tending to livestock. And fighting zombies. Might even let you build some stuff, if you want." He then switches his attention back to Rory, squinting in curiosity. The individual function is a bit beyond his means of understanding, but as a miner, he can tell at least this much; "Making some kind of fancy panning sieve, then? I was never able to figure that out." Moments later, and with a degree less patience, he glowers at the collection of Erchius and the sticks, demanding, "C'mon, combine! I want to see what happens!"
Kyra Hyral	"Oh, I wasn't aware that happened to their homeworld. That is...well, a justifiable source of anger, that is for certain. Though I guess this means making an army out of this stuff is not such a good idea." Meanwhile, she seems pleased that her bullets can shatter the crystals provided that she aims at them! Once she's sure the foe is dispatched and not still alive and within grabbing range, she moves forward to scoop up the crystal shards, placing them in pockets and pouches at her waist. "But how do you-"     Kyra hears the familiar sound of her device activating, the hiss of deployed liquid nitrogen slicing through the air crisply. Then, without warning, some finned thing is nearby her. Kyra squeaks in alarm and lifts her gun only to find that there is only water in its wake, pooled in a crater. "W...what the...what was /that/."     Worried, she moves along to Alexis's darkened chamber. The one that she had Pavo warning her about moments before, no less. Warily, Kyra stares into the darkness, casting a scan spell so she has an idea of numbers of Erichus zombies they might be facing in the dark.
Starbound Flotilla	Souji's feet touch the top of the roof where the garrison is, shrouded in darkness. He walks...     Every single battle instinct suddenly goes off at once. The portion of roof where Souji has just stepped has a hole blown in it, and it'll catch his legs too if he doesn't pull them up. It smashes a horizontal strike through the rooftop, spraying splinters and shingles off to the side. Unlike the others, Souji got to see something. A single glowing purple shard on a Hylotl face, on a flickering, passing blur. The lower two eyes have claw marks rendering them blind, while the third eye above has a single shard of erchius lodged in it. Whatever makes Souji more capable of seeing this than the others isn't quite clear, but combat intuition says it's the samurai-esque clarity of mind that made it possible to see just that tiny flash.
Starbound Flotilla	Zwei's explosion going off is within half a second of one of Corona's turrets being targeted by a massive force, like it was just shot at with some sort of heavy cannon, streaking towards it. The impact is likely to tear it off its fastenings, and try to slam it near Corona, or maybe into her! Thankfully, she's cleared out those Erchius warriors that she was able to draw off. In fact... There don't seem to be many left at all! By staggering them, she forces them to stay in just about the same place for a rather long time. Though one or two try to get her when she's down the turrets that remain take them off their feet, and give her a chance to punch through the durasteel and shatter the crystals...     Now it's just a matter of seeing what in the world is making those crackling craters headed back towards the garrison!
Zwei	"Meditation is the pursuit of insight and mental clarity. Inner peace requires both, and so is a common end of its means, but sapient beings capable of it have been meditating on all manner of things for eons." Asche remarks to Kyra. "The placement is noted. Proceeding." It's an abrupt switch from something that sounds like wisdom to dispassionate, toneless combat affirmation. He gets two steps forward before the mine goes off, and then the entire corridor behind him. The speed at which the Armiger turns is a little absurd even given the expected, including the way his torso seems to fully rotate around before his legs.     The attack sequence is blindingly fast by most any standard, but still within the realm of post-singularity computer aided reaction time, and is clearly recognizable as blind fire followed by tracer sweeping, or the equivalent thereof. There's no time to accelerate using thrusters, as absurdly powerful as they may be, and so he recalls the pre-charged teleportation beacon from just prior, blinking of of place as abruptly as the group's assailant seems to act, an infinitismal fraction of a second before the line of craters catches up, reappearing just in time to catch the cryogrenade going off.     "Aggressor confirmed. No matching target profile with erchius warrior designated drones. Potential sapient lifesigns. Unconfirmed method of attack. Stand by." The obvious assumption is that the attacker is using the same or similar kind of quantum timeline splitting as the erchius warriors but to a far greater degree, and so Asche attempts to interact with his equivalent technology, expanding his interdiction field to as wide an area as practical possible. Dispersed so highly, it won't serve as an effective barrier to another attack of that type, but being fully entangled with all space within its radius means that he /should/ be able to detect higher order disturbances, and acquire a target lock for the benefit of himself and his allies. /*Weiss standing by*/ //They will know or they do not need to know. Continue as usual. Prepare to castle.// /*I'll set up another beacon I guess. I'm not sure this is an infowar thing, so Asche should still be fine.*/     "This is the most bizarre type of mining and crafting I've ever seen." Weiss states plainly and without reservation. "Please, continue!" She's pretending like an explosive battle isn't happening a short distance away, lasering apart chunks of erchius and hoovering them up with the matter manipulator circuit through the same hand, the pieces flying towards her of their own accord and abruptly disappearing. "Flat Earth huh? Do things /normally/ work that way there? I'm not even sure I can back Rory up on that and call any of this primitive. I mean, I definitely can't do that with a pickaxe and a pile of wood. Not without pretending anyways."
Corona Arclite	The turret doesn't just get blasted off its position, it's blasted into a scattering of clockwork parts and shrapnel. They're made for quick deployment and dishing out a rapid chunk of damage, not really take it. Not when it's usually easier for Corona to make more later than try to fix them now. The chunks from the exploding turret clatter around her, even forcing Corona to duck a moment as once flaming piece soars past her head. "The blue hell was that?!" Remaining warriors try to rush her while she's ducking the debris of her own construct, but the remaining turrets force them back again. Long enough for her to recover, get in and smash through their armor and crystals with the pickax hook end of her Breaker. "One of those thin's is screwin' with space-time to make explosions?!" She actually sounds a little jealous with that remark. Hoo boy.
Starbound Flotilla	"Cheerful. I think she'll like the chance to get offworld, Kotone, thank you for helping her like that. I know you'll treat her better than the Hivemind did." Seft says, giving kotone another cheerful ^_^ as she helps extract the clusters for Kotone to drill. "Content. Plus, this is the sort of life most Outcasts want to lead, the kind of work we do in the Flotilla. I'm sure she'll be happy to help you."
Souji Murasame	The detonation causes Souji to flip backwards, his hand lashing outward with a crack of lightning that rips through the air. But some things are faster than lightning. In the momentary flash, Souji sees the entity for a moment, a frozen instant of clarity in a world of chaos. "An actual... Hylotl?" Souji hisses. "But the only Hylotl corpse present was..." His eyes widen. "/No./" He steps back three paces, and whips his blade upwards into a ready stance before he calls out in a challenge, "ISAMU! FACE ME!" The speed and power of the reanimated corpse is far beyond the Erchius warrior drones. If even a fragment is capable of this, an imprint of hatred passed down for a thousand years and found a housing in its mortal shell once more... Is /this/ the power of Erchius? Such a wonderous, dangerous material. He will be sure to use it well. But first... he has to survive. And that means striking that being down through either skill or treachery. They're both on the table.
Starbound Flotilla	"Not a damn thing, lass. Got eyes on nothin'. I'll get the lights." Pavo says, in a stressed tone. It's a moment before the pirate-style helmet on her armor summons a small light...     There is an unarmed hylotl, armorless. The humanoid form is hard to see, because Alexis gets only one moment to see it. Feminine? No, not quite. Thin, but toned in a masculine way, and... A beard? Souji might not be right here.     As soon as it's lit up, she can see that it's got a fist presented to her, as if an offering. It's utterly still for one second, before attempting a one-inch punch straight at her torso. The impossible speed by which it strikes is going to be enough to knock Alexis clean through the garrison structure and out the other end somewhere near Souji if she winds up taking it head-on.
Alexis Maaka	"Well, keep looking-!"     Alexis is caught off just by the sight of that mysterious lone Hylotl, and she almost whirls to engage before she feels something strike her. "What the fu-"     And then she's sent flying through the cavern walls, smashing through solid stone and landing right at Souji's feet with a painful looking tumble. It's like she got hit by a truck, and she feels that way too.     "...ow. I think I know what's been stalking us." She says, groaning as she tries to pick herself back up.
Starbound Flotilla	Rory sets up a materials separator! There's... Wow, there's a lot of potential nuclear fuels here. Why are there so many? Moons literally aren't supposed to have so much plutonium that could possibly be used in an actual reactor. What is even going on here? Well, it IS compatible with most Flotilla-type fuel systems, and useful besides, but it sure is really confusing! It can also easily separate the Erchius out, but cracking the bigger crystal clusters still has to be done by hand, it seems.
Kotone Yamakawa	Kotone Yamakawa says "I admit worlds like this? Or even yours Steve kinda turn what I do know about physics on it's head so I jut kinda try to take it from a world by world basis myseld Steve. Still if I got the okay to explore yours nad help out a bit I might just do so." <<So this is pretty cray stuff isn't it?>> Kotone keeps on going for the crystals she'll leave any liquid to those who know far better how to handle the stuff.>> Kotone contiunes to mine awy with the xrill whil chatting as she goes she's looking for anything of note aside the crystals after all this place had been habitated who knows if they might break though to something so she's making use of her body's senses to keep an eye out for things. "Live stock? That's a job I never really had it's become more and more automated for the most part where I live. Oh Rory you need any processing power I can lend a hand there if you need it." "I think so too she'll be happy and I don't mind hey she'll be part of the crew right?" She works away with Seft and nods in agreement "I think she'll be happy working with us too."
Starbound Flotilla	The ERCHIUS PICKAXE is created. Steve now possesses what seems to be a sort of modulated pickaxe, which is to say, his psionic impulse is able to adjust its effect rather harshly. By swinging it the way he'd swing a stone pickaxe, it behaves as such, and its integrity drains rather slowly... When swung like something much more strong, cracks show over its form rapidly, displaying clear decay. Erchius crystals seem specialized to create MENTALLY REACTIVE equipment! Presumably more complex crafting might make some effects that are a little more worthwhile.
Starbound Flotilla	"It set off your trap." Is all Albert says to Kyra. They come up on the spot where someone just got knocked clean through a building. Pavo is dazed and confused nearby. "Murasame and Maaka are through there." He grunts heavily. There's another slamming sound, another heavy impact just behind where Kyra stepped. There are no Erchius Warriors now, at least, none that are complete. Several of them seem incomplete, actually! But there is one thing. It seems to flicker, in one place, then another, zipping around as if skipping over entire portions of the process of movement. It looks like it did that to rapidly melt itself out of Kyra's trap when it was frozen, just next to her despite the long distance from the trap itself. This target is zipping around in ways that don't fit the laws of physics.
Souji Murasame	Damn. Souji is taken aback slightly when he sees the beard. Well, it was a nice guess. The fact that they never actually searched the entire compound becomes a liability in this case. When Maaka lands near him, Souji kneels and helps Alexis up. "Are you all right, Maaka?" He asks. "He seems to be an accomplished Monk." Souji, stating the obvious. It's a skill. "You will need to try to match his speed. Focus your mind, it will keep the displacement reaction down. I will attempt to engage it. Get your rifle. You're a sniper, aim for the crystal shard in the eye when you have a clear line of fire." At this, Souji steps forward, and levels his blade at the monk. "You may not be Isamu, but you seem to be a worthy warrior nevertheless." He says through the holes. A moment later, Souji blurs forward, ripping through the air with a thunderous wash of lightning. Electricity surges around him, ripping off the blade in waves as he beats down upon the monk's postion with multiple pressure cut attacks. "Murasame Sword Arts: Thousand-Cutting Wind!" He declares. Oh God, he /is/ just like Moonfin sometimes. His engagement is defensive, however, attempting to keep the warping martial artist from punching him like he did Maaka and also trying to keep him in one general location so Alexis can do her sniper thing. After all, Souji isn't mostly cybernetics. That might sting.
Starbound Flotilla	What Zwei detects is not movement, but rather, the followup. The tiny vibrations in the ground imply a dozen steps all at once, like someone just ran by, but did so by absolutely compressing their actions down into a single moment. But never the one moving. They zip around every few milliseconds, clearly functioning on organic time perception, but moving in a quantum way. They seem... Misdirected, though, without aim. It's no wonder that they missed Asche. It's tough to get the lock, with that in mind... They can join with Souji, Kyra, and Maaka at the slowly-wrecked garrisson, with Corona most likely soon to join as well! It's likely that the effect Septette discovered, of 'complex' perception versus 'simple' perception, is affecting their time compression even more here.
Starbound Flotilla	Corona smashes through the armor on one, opening it up to unprotected fire of her turrets as it staggers, and then hooks square through one of the other, immobilizing it and letting another do the same. "It is striking with brute force, and little time." Moonfin says. Looks like he split off and doubled back from Souji, to go see Corona. "Please, take your leave here. Allow me to finish the lesser threat of the Disphotic. Our allies ahead require assistance." He says, dashing out of one of the nearby tunnels and stylishly slicing one of the disphots at the back. "Do what you can to resolve the more relevant threat."
Starbound Flotilla	Souji has seen the eyes; they are blinded. This target, however quick and strong it may be, can't target well. As the group works out its positioning around the garrison, every so often, more craters are made as the threat tries to slam into the ground. More holes are punched in structures as it tries to impact those present.     They are blind. Every time they strike, they are slowed by mentally "simple" perception. They are, most notably, not using reaction times beyond that of an organic. They're clearly using on-foot paths, and short bursts of intensely compressed time. As the being attempts to strike them repeatedly, these are the facts they've seen, and will eventually share and know between each other. They need only put these facts to use. How do you stop someone who turns half a minute into an instant? This isn't superspeed, it's outright skipping ahead, like a sort of incredibly dangerous teleportation.     Not too tough to deal with, if you're willing to exploit the need to occupy some form of environment at some time, the proven vulnerability to traps, and the blindness. Notably, something like Souji's technique is working wonders. Area denial DOES work, and rather well. Several crashing strikes against the ground crater AROUND Souji, but not at him himself, showing that the entity is averse to the defensive cutting assault.
Steve	"Yeah, because it's...flat," Steve adds with a shrug to Weiss. Admittedly, it's something that he hard someone remark about it when he first unified, and the name kind of stuck. He's not aware of other, perhaps negative connotations the name might have in more familiar versions of Earth. He pauses to wrinkle his eyebrows, glancing up at a bit of debris getting jarred loose from the nearby battles, that while likely unheard in the near-vacuum, are still quite easily felt. "Those other guys okay?"     After a moment, he gives a shake of his head, and explains a bit better, "My world doesn't go this deep. And it doesn't have mountains as high as what I've seen some places. Don't even know if it has an end. Heard some smart person remark the 'visible surface area' is like an ice giant, whatever that is." It might seem curious that so much about his world, he only knows second hand, but then he doesn't really need to travel across most of it, especially these days. Hurray for warpgates, and nether portals. "Anyway, this is how it's always worked for me. I even have some devils doing it now!"     He's sort of used to people gawking at his particular method of mineral extraction, by now, so he doesn't think too deeply on those comments. Especially when he notices that the material seems to be succumbing to his will for it to create his item. After a few moments of unease from those infinitely more familiar with the material, no doubt, he seems to discard his iron pickaxe for a moment to give some hefts of the newly-formed Erchius equivalent. "Hmmm!" It doesn't take him long to feel the difference, either. It's almost like it was meant to be! And what better way to give it a proper test than to get right into the work he'd been distracted from.     The miner starts out with helping Rory's swarms clear out even more of the less valuable moonrock, a pace he can't quite match given the quantity, but at a curiously cubic meter at a time, he's still going strong at it. Another curiosity is when he nonchalantly places some of them back against the wall, as stepping stones to climb at higher specimens. Then he'll turn his attention to helping liberate and break up more of the Erchius itself. "Guess we'd better finish things up. There's no telling what the others have dug up. Critters love places like this, can't imagine it's any different here."     His brow furrows as the crystal nodules aren't quite as easy to work loose from each other, and the Erchius pickaxe appears to mirror the grimace, in its own way. Hardening, but also becoming more brittle. This is going to take a bit more work and study to make something truly effective, but it's an enlightening experience.
Corona Arclite	Corona Arclite wenches the pick end out of the one she was holding down, and nods to Moonfin. "No problem." She slings tht Breaker onto her back as she sprints off in the direction of Souji and the others farther inside. Mostly because she switchs it for .. wait, that's not the shotgun. Huh. "Here comes the calvary!" Actually it's the Terminal Viscosity she's drawn, and instead of trying to attack the space-jumping foe, just starts shooting globs of tar like substance at various spots on the ground. Either it's eventually going to hit the stuff and hopefully get stuck, or at least have less places to jump as it avoids it.
Rory White	Rory's thought threads are undoubtedly managing the drones... or rather, those doing the actual digging. AIs handle hauling it out. That's the secret behind a lot of her multi-tasking. When to let AIs handle the grunt work that's mostly brainless, and when to use a personal touch... and how to seamlessly swap between them. Her will drives those drills and scoops that keep extending the tunnel and exposing Erchius clusters, hauling it all back to the materials separator.     The separator is... slow. But it's creating piles in containers of refined minerals, safe to haul. They'll have to wait QUITe a while for it to FINISH this pile. They're digging a hundred times faster than it can refine if not more so.     It's a slow damned thing.     "This strata's mineral composition's unusual, comparing it with most rocky moons. Useful radioactives though! I was running low." And Rolan checks what's known of the AMATERASU supplies!     She smiles at Steve, about to say something - and then he goes and breaks physics again. Leaving her frozen in place, staring. Again. "... How do you DO that cube phenomena?"
Steve	"Don't know," Steve answers honestly to Rory's wonder, while shuffling across on a jutting of moonrock that he placed himself, to get at the ceiling. "This is just how it's always been for me. Guess it's a talent?" He spares a glance down to Kotone at this, "She's seen it. Maybe another offworlder's eyes might help explain."
Rory White	It's a bit before Kotone receives. Rory's pretty distracted! <<It's... as odd as always. But this is a much better kind of odd than, as Kyra put it, Crystal Samurai Zombies. And it's fine, Kotone. If you'd like to play with some drones though, have a go!>>
Starbound Flotilla	George speaks up, interjecting in the mining, between Rory and Steve. "How do you do that thing where stuff isn't cubes, Rory?" Then he gives a goofy grin, and a wink, making it clear how he's just messing with her.     "Affirming. She certainly will. I know the other Glitch Outcasts are still at work on Amalgam to get their chance to reach space, it is good to have such a dedicated example of the outcasts join the crew of the Flotilla at large." Seft says, swapping back from ^_^ to '_' in a pleasant sort of conversationalism.     "Huuuhhhhh... Maybe can help, maybe not. Sssometime, bessst, fassstest way for going, just not interrupt. You go if want? Floran think, probably ssstay. Flat Earth? We go, sssometime, sssound like fun place. Floran know about Earth in thisss galaxy. Broken by giant fish. We go ssee, learn about how thingsss work." Biteblade speaks up, cheerfully, from her own cluster-cracking.
Kyra Hyral	"It did." Kyra agrees, before swinging the CURE-ALL off of her back. She doesn't break away from Albert and instead takes aim and fires at Pavo, careful to not take a step away from her Apex guardian. Swinging, she moves the healing 'weapon' back onto her back as she turns to watch the spot behind her once again. "Is this how they usually move?" Kyra asks warily, plucking a second cryogrenade off of her belts. With great care, she sets the cryogrenade behind her, pointing outwards, making sure that Albert sees her setting it up.     "Because that's very weird." Kyra says, a little louder, "I thought these guys had the honor associated with samurai, you know? I didn't think they zipped around like ninja without any sort of /rules of engagement/." Her voice, hopefully is loud enough to be heard by their flicking, flitting, incomplete stalker.
Zwei	//Both are required.// /*Assuming it works.*/ //The erchius is not about to leave.//     Weiss halts her somewhat superfluous erchius mining efforts having predominantly come along to watch and analyze rather than do something that can be left to drones later over the long run. Especially Steve. "Sorry guys, just gimme one second! I'll be right back!" she says, waving apologetically, before abruptly popping out of view by instantly translating her spatial coordinates to a few feet from Asche. The 'castle' maneuver, as it is so called, both the applications and the parallel being obvious.     "This would not be considered a usual specimen of warrior, Hyotl or otherwise." Asche says to Kyra. "In the same way as Isamu, he has sacrificed much for power in the name of his ideal. Perhaps even too much. He is skilled, but cannot entirely recover what he has given up." All further information is restricted to radio, where the blind monk won't hear it being spoken. The need for two bodies in the same place becomes immediately apparent as the need for two Transience drives operating simultaneously for the scale of mid-combat work that is to be done. Whilst Corona fires the globs of adhesive tar, Zwei's sub-units remain seemingly still, but the moonrock between the pools warps and shifts, becoming columns that shoot upwards and meld seamlessly into the ceiling, then dripping back a short ways as spikes.     Asche's larger reactor handles the gruntwork of gross terrain shifting, while as soon as they are obscured, Weiss begins deploying straight out of her matter manipulator, rigging the insides of each obstruction with minute, shock sensitive bombs. Conventional shrapnel or explosive wouldn't be fast enough to catch the Hyotl even if he were to trigger them, and so the choice of filling is more or less a form of raiser concussion explosive, since lightspeed is as close as Zwei can get to instant in the form of weaponization. Surrounding each member dilligently, the monk should have no choice but to either charge into an adhesive, churn through fields of spikes, or take the obvious 'weakpoint' in blasting through the hastily constructed pillars that are clearly too thin to actually stop him from punching them apart; a deliberate show of underestimating his strength.
Alexis Maaka	A corporate with empathy? THat's a first. Alexis doesn't seem to mind, as she takes Souji's hand as she stands back up. "I'll live. Been hit harder before." She says, before she reaches for her coilgun. With Souji doing the swordfighting, she can focus on pinning the bastard down in order for the Murasame Heir to finish the job. "Don't need to tell me twice, just keep him busy."     She trails her rifle downrange, bracing the stock against her shoulder, and she waits.     Once she gets a bead on him, Alexis takes the shot. It's one shot, one angry shot for the eyeball once she stays outside of the monk's fists.     She isn't quite aiming to eliminate the warrior, but disable him in time for Souji to secure the kill.
Steve	"Not everything is cubes," he does protest, just a bit, after a well-aimed strike to free another hunk of precious Erchius, which he deposits -- wherever it is stuff goes with this guy. It does take him a moment to ponder it, before he produces, "Like carrots. Those aren't. Unless I figure out how to make a block out of them." There's tomorrow's project, then. He very carefully makes his way back across his beam of moonrock, and moves down the steps he made. Along the way he'd collected a lot, which he empties out of his inventory into the waiting skips. If one were to find a way to shake him down, of course he kept a bit for himself to experiment with on his own, but he's honest enough in this case to have given the bulk up to the original finders.     "Sure!" He says to...the space that Weiss occupied just an eyeblink ago. And he's the weird one? "Huh, now that's a neat trick. Hope that'll even up whatever fight they've found." Finishes his depositing, he pries some of the moonrock free again, leaving a smooth surface behind, and also takes that. Not like anyone is bothering with it, except Rory, at this point. Speaking of, he wanders over to that contraption, "So my guess was right?" Eyeing the recovered trace elements, though, he gives his iron age, land-of-plenty appraisal, "Doesn't really seem worth it, for these scraps, though." The concept of rare earth elements is completely out of his experience.     "Anyway, I'm going to load up one more minecart," as he calls the skips, apparently. "Then I'm heading out for some real air. I'll hang around in case there's any deeper trouble, though. Least I can do for all of you being so accomodating." He gives the Erchius pickaxe a rest, its surface already pitted and creased, switching back to his reliable iron for the rest.
Starbound Flotilla	Tar everywhere. This is especially potent against the blind monk, as is the spiky terrain and the concussive blastmines. His movements may be instantaneous, but each will trigger what he passes, and get slowed as he builds up the material at his feet. There's a moment where he seems to be flickering into a stunned position, from those concussive blasts, bleeding from the unexpected terrain adjustments, still sticky and slowed by the tar. Being blind, whatever he is is based on these caves staying absolutely the same!     Wounded and slowed, the monk can only flicker suddenly to a position where he's clearly CAUGHT Alexis' bullet, though doing so has slammed his fist against the lone shard of Erchius that keeps him moving. Now you get a much more clear vision of him. His green scaled skin is aged, even somewhat emaciated despite having the bulk of a dedicated warrior-monk. And his body isn't covered in armor, no, it has a monk's robe, a mass of beard-like fins, and... Tools? Ancient tools, a mix of modern and incredibly anachronistic Erchius-working tools, in fact, clearly designed to craft with crystal. The shard, it seems obvious, is one that was intentionally slammed into his eye.     It should be clear at this point that Isamu killed him. Presumably that's why he's still here, making Erchius warriors.     Stunned enough that his compression ability could be damaged, he works to finish this, rushing in in a set of three flickering bursts... And setting off that trap, freezing him in place. He rapidly compresses the time it takes to unfreeze, but that's been damaged, he can't unfreeze himself instantly this time. One assumes he can be finished now, frozen in that blind martial arts strike mid-swing. The brilliantly shining tiny Erchius shard is still lodged in that eye, and easily accessible.
Kotone Yamakawa	Kotone Yamakawa comms Rory back. <<Getting more drone experiance is never a bad thing really is it? I'll do that then>> Even as she works and chats she's now taken control over a small group of mining drones. "She was a pretty big help and did also help me a lot for posing as a Glitch, you know at some point I want to imove that costuime to make it basically more plug and play to use at some point. Though the face plate as someone who wasn't used to that? I must have been hilarious. Hey they can hopefully find their way right? Funny thing is Glitch might just be mistaken for humans with very curious taste in shells from the norm of my world. Seriously I heard about some people staying in basically a box like shell." "Steve as for your offer I'll take you up on it sometime I'm curious to learn more but I have some personal issues to handle first." She keeps on drilling and now brings the drones she's taken command of to help.
Corona Arclite	As they're dealing with something that can warp time, Corona doesn't want to waste the few moments it would take her to switch weapons. So instead just barks a quick, "Finish him before he thaws!" to the others present that are more readily armed to do so. "But don't damaged those tools! They pro'ly relate to workin' with this crystal stuff!" Other than that, she's hanging back at this point and letting the big hitters do the hitting.
Souji Murasame	Blind. Each revelation reveals new dimensions to the opponent... And more importantly, new weaknesses. Being able to attack on a wide plane and not expose oneself allows Souji to not get instantly mulched. But when the incredible monk is brought to a standstill, frozen literally in place as opposed to in time, Souji moves with a blur, his blade flicking once, twice, thrice. "Pass into the darkness." Souji states as he strikes. It's hard to see where the blade passes, but in the exposure, Souji reaches out with two fingers immediately after, striking for that Erchius crystal embedded in the eye, intending to plunge them into the dessicated socket and rip the shard out with his hand. Without the crystal, when the being unfreezes he will probably have a hard time with the passage of the Murasame Blade passing through the neck and both shoulders. Maybe if he could reverse the time to heal himself, he could. The question is really if he has more than one Erchius cluster of that density. Souji is hoping not.
Starbound Flotilla	The man is beheaded immediately and swiftly. The erchius tears out of the socket without issue, leaving the beard-finned monk with a bloody, but rather dignfied-looking beheading. His tools are left behind, as is much of the head, and the partially-complete body. He looks scholarly, well-read. Examination of the "garrison" that ensues will find some very simple facts here. He was here before even Isamu, it seems, and presumably murdered by her to initiate her army and have him produce for her. The hermit Erchius Craftsman was a unique class of his own, formed not out of whole parts but out of the corpse of a true artisan. His resources are here for the taking, though, to be distributed among the rest of the group. All manner of unique, ancient erchius engineering equipment and information are here. For some, enough to craft Erchius weapons and tools of their own, for others enough to craft the erchiusoid entities that occupy these caves.     Elsewhere, the miners have acquired a very, very large stockpile of the erchius crystals. By separating all the clusters, the psionic amplification effects of the mines have been neutralized, meaning that proper workers can enter now, without fear of setting off some sort of zombie apocalypse. Alongside that, the elevators, skip tracks, and lighting are all complete. This mine will feed the Flotilla and the Zaibatsu for years yet, at this scale, and those who have helped can take their reserved share of profit or material without issue.