Scene #5933: A New Adventure-1

Owner	Pose
Dexter Arkwright	The expedition to the jungles of the southern continent of Lemura 'began' in the wee hours of the morning, where the group would meet at the airship dock in an Allegheny city. The city was tall, buildings towering high into the sky and skyscrapers even into cloud level, miniature airships flying around, skyrails carrying trains between buildings overhead, a city built on height instead of width. The architecture and atmosphere was very 'rolling 20s', Art Deco in style with sleek buildings and statues, cubic shapes and designs. The clothing was very similar as well, with most men wearing suits and hats, with women dressing like flappers in short skirts and dresses. Dexter, though, wasn't. The young man, short blonde hair and bright blue eyes, was in his mid 20s. He had a big smile on his face, and was wearing khaki adventuring clothes, complete with a sun hat. He looked like a stereotypical adventurer with his backpack and everything, though he was holding something strange - it was like a briefcase, but it was rounded, with two big metal cylinders comprising of it, and some sort of orange color popping up inbetween them. It didn't seem to open normally, though, with no latches, or cracks, or hinges of any sort. But the focus was not on Allegheny or Dexter, but on travelling to Lemura. The ship they were to ride on was practically a miniature cruise ship but with a massive balloon, and a set of propeller thrusters on the sides of the boat. Dexter called it the 'fastest, most luxurious ship money could buy', powered by his company's diesel. The ship had rooms for each Elite for the 'short duration', a fully stocked bar, and a personal chef. For Dexter, the journey was definitely as important as the destination. The actual part of the travel was faster than one might expect, only taking a span of hours - when Dexter said it was the fastest money could buy, he really meant it. This was partly due to Lemura not actually being /too/ far from Allegheny, but the insane diesel technology certainly helped. They stopped near the beach, dropping off ladders due to the lack of a real landing infrastructure for the massive ship, though there's several base camps and such for expeditions. The group isn't stopping here, though, and instead travelling inward the jungle towards the ruins. It's hot and humid, there's mosquitoes trying to bite people, monkeys attempting to steal hats if they get a chance, and even quicksand at one point. However the group gets past these obstacles... They'll find it after some time's journey: a small pyramid, Aztec-style, covered in murals. Getting close to it is a bit of a problem, though, as they'll notice the reason no one's returned from the expedition - there's several rope traps hanging from the trees, still carrying corpses of what appears to be natives, animals, and a single explorer. With how many trees are around the temple, there might be sure to be more before they get up to the front door. There was also the feeling that something was watching them, but nothing in sight...
Staren	Staren arrives in his armor, but it turns out there's going to be a long, luxurious trip, so once shown to his quarters he takes it off and spends the time seeing the ship, working remotely through Multiverse radio, comparing maps, and talking to the crew about how a diesel airship can go so FAST. At one point he leans over the edge to look down at where Central America isn't, and mutters "Suck it, vampires." into the wind. And then they're there and it's time to gear up! That was fast, Staren is impressed! He suits up and heads into the jungle. He is glad he doesn't have to deal with mosquitoes or the heat and humidity. Fully-sealed environmental armor with climate control is just the best, guys! And then, ruins! "Ooooo, fascinating! Usually on Earth, that style of ruins is uh... on the part of North America that sticks down on the maps I showed you, before it narrows and connects the continents?" Staren looks at one of the rope traps that's been tripped, and flies up to cut one down and examine the rope. "What kind of rope could last so long? Or perhaps someone else is here..."
Orchid	Is it still archaeology when the ruins contain better technology than has been made in the last hundred years? Whether it still counts or not, Orchid is along on this trip, with a backpack full of the gear she needs to help in her own way. Mostly first aid supplies, some recording equipment, and perhaps most importantly, her 'Augmented Reality' glasses and a box of her 'spyders' the little robots she uses so often to take a quiet look around things without putting her neck on the line. She would have handed out her AR glasses before they got this far, and once they start seeing the traps, she releases the robots, letting them go forward, both along the path and next to it, looking for traps and any other dangers. "Put those glasses on, and they'll let you see the traps I'm finding," she instructs the others. Staren has a point about the rope. "Given how quickly things rot in the jungle, and that local animals can trigger the traps, I think it may be the second," she adds.
Lemeza Kosugi	Hm. The businessman-turned-hobbyist did bother to look the part, and he seems to have equipped himself as well. Still, Lemeza's mainly here to make sure that Dexter, the newest member of the Concord, doesn't get himself killed taking on what is undoubtedly a highly dangerous expedition. Not to be outdone, the professional archaeologist has ensured that his outfit is in absolutely pristine condition: khaki pants ironed, hunter-green vest dusted off and spruced up, brand new fedora with crisp center wrinkle. Oh, and he's taken extra precautions to scrub out any stray curry stains. Speaking of, he actually hasn't had any at all this entire trip... curry is starting to sound rather delicious. The ride by airship is kind of... eh. It's no jet liner, but it works well enough. Lemeza spends most of his time checking and re-checking his equipment, as well as booting up his laptop and loading up a few relevant programs. This is going to be a lot like La-Mulana, so he's planning ahead - making sure nothing breaks at a critical moment. The geography of the world below is of comparatively less interest to Lemeza; he leaves that to Staren, who seems to always analyze that sort of thing on impulse. The trip through the jungle is somewhat long and arduous, but nothing new. The mosquitoes aren't bats, so that's an improvement, and the other obstacles are pretty standard. When the party reaches the ancient pyramid, though, Lemeza notes two things - one, the murals are RIGHT OUT IN FRONT, and two, a blatantly obvious trap greets everyone. Yeah, just gonna stay back a bit and let Orchid's spiders get a lay of the land. But, Lemeza does start scanning the murals with his laptop's mounted camera, seeing if there's any hidden meaning beyond basic art.
Tomoe	It's time for Adventure that does not involve trouble back home, Tomoe has been in good spirits for the whole trip, she'd also been prone for going for flights from the airship. The Salamander was just having fun with it, and the aeria shots she got with her smart phoner turned out pretty nice too. She had to admit Dexter looked like he walked out of a pulp novel from the last century on her world. She did think that was pretty neat though. Also the food had been amazing and she'd been generally a pretty happy camper. The level that this world had pushed combustion tech was darn right impressive she thought during the trip. Once they finally arrived it was go time. The Gristly scene gets a frown from Tomoe as she looks over the corpses. "Ya I seen ruins like that, they found a lost city or two from the Aztec era in the jungles whgen I was a kid. Still I don't like the look of these corpses..."
Dexter Arkwright	As Staren cuts down the rope, the rope seems to be fresh, normal rope, made from the local plant material. The interesting thing is in how it was set up - it's clumsy, sloppy, yet works, as if it was just barely put together into a working trap by a child. Orchid's able to track the rope traps, finding that their location-planting was also sloppy. They were placed in random trees, instead of those that would be most travelled through, or where they'd most be concealed. Their concealment is decent, but easily found by those looking for them, as if those putting them together didn't think of that. Lemeza will find that the murals have writing on them. It's chicken scratch, horribly written...but it does translate meaning, showing there's a language behind it. It loops endlessly, though. 'WELCOME TO THE TEMPLE OF TRIALS' is written all over the outside, sometimes several times attached to each other.
Orchid	Well, with the traps found and marked on everyone's HUDs, Orchid directs her spiders back to the pyramid itself. They converge on the ruins, looking for the ways in, climbing onto it, but not into any entrance more than a foot wide. Orchid is maintaining and updating to her fellows a map of what she's finding.
Staren	So they're just going to immediately go inside? Staren walks around the traps now that Orchid's tagged them. Staren activates a breadcrumb positioning system in addition to his usual inertial tracker, though, just to be extra safe -- dropping a tiny wireless relay every now and then. And then heads up whatever way they find in. Are there stairs?
Gideon Kaspar	As to be expected after his exhaustive inquiry into Arkwright's business, the young dilettante is joined by the only somewhat older private commander. Right off the bat, Gideon seems to be all over the 20s aesthetic, taking frequently photographs and video recordings with a smart device, and taking every opportunity to point at dieselpunk shenaniganry and ask questions. According to him, the aesthetic of Allegheny is all the rage at the moment back home, and he wants to bring back as much to show for his 'business trip' as possible. He seems completely ecstatic about the airship ride as well, and his fancy G&K coat draped over his business outfit certainly fits in with the luxury accommodations. He makes full use of the bar for a while, until his one and only attache drags him away from it; a young woman a head shorter than him with short silver hair and amber eyes, dressed in crisp white, black, cream and gold, and wearing things such as pieces of beiged tactical webbing and ballistic gloves that could almost go unnoticed despite the huge clash in function with her outfit. By contrast, she spends most of the trip with a constantly flat look, trying to prevent Gideon from causing too much trouble and silently preventing tomfoolery, as well as, oddly, staring at a typewriter for a while. Touching down, Gideon immediately begins complaining about the heat, to which is adjudant tells him that he shouldn't have worn a three piece suit if he knew they were going to the equator. He waves away the AR glasses, and un-pockets an expensive-looking monocle and chain from the breast pocket of his red coat, which apparently seems to serve the same function, leaving one eye free of digital obstructions. Said adjudant is equipped a little differently, carrying a heavily modified and rather beefy submachine gun, strapped down with a number of spare magazines and grenades, and with what appears to be an ultra-lightweight exoskeleton frame attached to all four limbs in black and yellow. Going through the jungle, she ends up pulling sensor goggles down over her face to see optimally in the obligatory gloom, and the humidity faintly scatters visible light from her laser sight. "Locals? A native tribe would be well-trained though. Practice, then? A child's prank? Or bandits. Probably bandits. I bet they kill visitors here all the time and loot their possessions." On that profoundly negative statement, the young lady immediately grabs a red-striped canister, puts her finger through the pin, and then reluctantly stops when Gideon says "Krys. No incendiaries in a jungle! Come on!" He takes a few moments to check out the placement of the rope traps and getting into the head of whoever was placing them, trying to pin down what kind of culprit is most likely by their strategic handiwork, and from there, extrapolating which trees they were most likely to wire up. Far from waiting others to test it, he seems confident enough in his own analysis to walk right through it, closely followed by his adjutant.
Dexter Arkwright	Gideon's investigation of the placements has good theories, though if he actually checks the corpse of the explroer, he's still wearing a nice watch. Perhaps the bandits didn't know what it was, if it was bandits? Either way, no one seems to be out here cutting down the corpses often, letting them rot to skeletons before collecting them. Dexter is careful about the traps once they're made out, and moves up to the murals. He glances at them for a bit, trying to make out what they are, before nodding to himself. "One of you is making copies of these, right? They'll look great in the newspaper about what we found!" He takes the lead, though lets Lemeza overtake him if he wishes, 'wanting to see how an expert does it'. The way up is a massive staircase, but it's a bit obscured until you get close, because it's equally covered in murals. It's like a wall of ancient graffiti, and that whoever is drawing this is trying to spread it everywhere. The interior of the pyramid is covered in different murals, with different writings. If translated, it talks about 'LEAVE ALMS AND THEN TRAVEL DOWN THE PATHWAY TO THE HEART OF THE WORLD IF YOU ARE WORTHY'. There's a huge shrine in the middle of the floor, and few walls. It seems like it's maintained often, based on the fact there's flowers and crumbs of food on top that haven't rotted, but it's still crumbling away, rock breaking off and not being kept up. There's a massive spiraling staircase in the back of the temple leading downwards, and nothing else of real interest beyond some bedrolls that don't seem to have ever been used, yet are still built up, giving it a vibe of this having once been a 'living area/temple'. Going down the stairs, as the group is likely to eventually do, spirals around to a massive hallway. It's pitch-black at first, beyond some faint sounds of scratching far away from the group, not facing in their direction. It's rhythmic, monotonous, rote. However, as the group turns on their lights and steps forward, torches start to ignite as plates in the floors are tripped by Dexter, and there's even more different murals and writing on the walls. This time it says 'DO NOT MIND THE DOORS, CONTINUE DOWN THE CORRIDORS TO FACE THE GREAT GUARDIAN'. At this point, one might wonder what trouble the other explorers had. A few more steps, and the previous pressure plate activates it. Blades come out of the walls, swinging in rhythm, while spike pits open in the floors, revealing skeletons deep inside, and closing up with flickering of the lights, opening up back and forth, making it difficult to tell where is a pit or not as the lights go out and turn back on, screwing with vision. And then, as they get closer, they'd notice them. On the sides near safe places are massive stone doors, incredibly heavy. They'd be difficult to open for one person, but with help or superhuman strength, likely possible. Built into them are practically little 'cat doors', beyond which the scratching noise is coming from. One of the miniature doors has colorful feathers stuck in it. And at the very end of the corridor, there's lights already lit up over another staircase. It seems the objective is clear!
Staren	Leave Alms, it says (once Lemeza translates it, anyway.) Staren decides it's not worth assuming the spirits don't exist to save some pocket change, and adds an Equestrian coin to the pile. "The 'Heart of the World' sounds like a long way down." Down they go, and... obstacle course! Staren watches to see what Lemeza does, but offers, "I bet with enough force we could break these traps and make it safe."
Lemeza Kosugi	Alright, Dexter's not dead yet. That's a good sign. It's more luck than anything, though, as he steps on enough pressure plates to cause Lemeza's blood pressure to SPIKE. "WATCH YOUR STEP! At least trigger the pressure plates from a distance!" Getting a bit frustrated, Lemeza pushes to the fore of the party, taking point position away from Dexter and carefully studying the layout of the trapped corridor in front. "Alright. This looks doable. Dexter, pay attention to this. And let's ignore the doors like the murals say!" It's a simple enough pattern to follow. Lemeza decides to forego dealing with the pits, instead executing a double-jump to hop on top of the first blade, steadying himself on the landing. After pinning down the timing of the swinging, he pushes off the first blade to the next, again jumping in mid-air for extra height and distance. He continues down the line of blades, working slowly through the obstacle course until getting to the end. Once through -- that is, if nothing crazy happens to the tempo of the swinging -- Lemeza starts looking for a switch on the far end, to deactivate the traps.
Orchid	Orchid goes with the others, her spiders looking for those pressure plates and especially anything moving inside the temple. While we're at it, Orchid is looking for anything that might look like it controls the traps. She's also sending one or two spiders under each of those doors. As for the room with the traps... "Spike pits and swinging blades." she watches Lemeza's route though the gauntlet, and if it works, she'll follow the same path, using her dash-boots to double-jump from one swinging blade to the next.
Tomoe	Tomoe will leave the more thought heavy things to the people who are better than them at it. So she's going to keep alert for more traps and she also looks back to Lemeza for a moment. "Look I'll take point, I can take hits others here might not be able to." She notes before Gideon brings up several grim but imporant points, "Good point there." Tomoe will fall in trying to head upfront of the group, if a trap will get someone? It's best it gets her. She scorps out the walls for a moment and then look to the shrine. "Puzzels, I hate puzzels oh for a bit of c4 in situations like this." She scorps it outt mutting as she trioes to figure out just what to do with it? "Well Staren that is true we could and it might be the smarest thing to do but I'm not sure the more historically minded would appicate that and it's up to our employer in the end on this." she will listen to thos with experiance with actual dungeon crawling. She will move rapidly and seems to have little issue with the blade, heck she's moving with agility one would not expect of someone of her size. She's luclky she's not tagged by the blades but while she's fast it's clear she's working pretty hard on it. "Hate traps so much, I rather deal with a gauntlet of monsters..."
Staren	Lemeza can double-jump? What?! Staren watches to see that Dexter gets through okay, ready to try to get in and give him nanobandages if needed. Once it's his turn, Staren decides to imitate Lemeza's tactic with a slight adjustment, briefly summoning energy wings to perch atop each blade and fly from one to the next until he gets past the corridor. "I suppose that's true. _Are_ we getting paid for this?" he replies to Tomoe.
Gideon Kaspar	"Crazy hermits. Even worse. I bet they're cannibals." "Krys. Negative energy. Besides, that might be offensive to their religion or something." "You intend to make a cultural exchange with the locals?" "Hahaha, no! Shoot the savages on sight." "Roger that." On the way past the shrine, Gideon mutters "See if you get one red cent out of me." to the writing. Krysanthe switches on her flashlight. A few seconds later, she practically slaps Dexter in the chest from pushing him back from the pressure plate. When it becomes clear it'd just turned the lights on instead of firing deadly poison darts, she says "Please watch your step. And where you put your hands. These kinds of places are not known for being kind to humans." She would dramatically charge the bolt on her SMG, but being a professional here, it was primed forever ago. It turns out to be a false-false alarm though, as she once practically punches him in the ribs to make extra double sure he stays behind her and not in the spike pits. "Considering the just about random state of decay of the rest of the temple, I wouldn't be surprised if one of these ledges fell apart, or if a blade came flying off its axle." "Right. And the tiny doors?" "Probably trained killer animals." "You know, I'm going to let that one slide, because I think that's kind of plausible at this point." "Switching to night vision." "You're going to run it?" "My purpose involves you not having to." Gideon shrugs and slips his hands into his jacket pockets. Krysanthe takes only a quick glance at the gauntlet and two steps back, before gunning it at full speed. Her full speed turns out to be /considerable/ as well, especially with the slimmed down pneumatics framing the back of her arms and legs, bringing her up to a clip that makes jumping multiple pits and pendulum traps easily done by sheer velocity. She doesn't stop to poke the doors with sticks, but on the way across, she liberally scatters explosive from a section of her webbing, throwing out little bricks with winkin red lights out in front of each cat flap, just in case. After doing the stunt course though, she turns to look back with detonator cautiously in hand, and frowns at some of the other Elites, looking like a short, too-young worried mother at Lemeza's hijinx especially, but not voicing her obvious consternation. "Hey! Krys! Is there a switch to pull over there or something? I didn't see a bridge pop out! And the blades are still moving!" Gideon yells, from the start of the gauntlet.
Dexter Arkwright	Lemeza is able to skillfully leap onto the blades, which don't have any special tricks to them, just swinging back and forth. Staren uses flight to join him and land on them, while Tomoe dashes with agility and Orchid joins up with Lemeza and Staren. Dexter, meanwhile, hangs back, moving to fiddle with his briefcase. The two round cylinders on either side are spread out, revealing a sort of 'thruster pack' as they unhinge, and an orange fabric is revealed. He grabs it, pulling it out to reveal a jumpsuit which he steps into, putting the pack on his back as the suit seals up and suddenly extends. Dexter reaches back and pulls over a hood... And both the suit and the hood 'solidify', the fabric forming a full suit, and the hood popping out into a fishbowl space helmet. Giving the others a thumbs up if they glance to him, he suddenly ignites the thrusters, and moves to fly through the blades, boosting past them with aerial superiority and mobility. Orchid's spiders slip under the doors while Dexter is doing this, and find the source of the scratching - dinosaurs. Specifically, several raptors the size of large cats, scratching on the walls with little chisels in their mouths. They're the feathered kind, and they seem to be drawing those murals painstakingly, slowly etching out each carving, and trying to scribble the language, their poor grips making it difficult for them. As the explosives are thrown forward, grabbing their attention, they turn towards them, one of them flocking forward to actually pick up an explosive and drag it inside to see what it it, gnawing at it with its teeth. That might go horribly. At the end of the corridor is indeed a switch to deactivate the traps! The lights stay on when the traps are deactivated, and there's a large staircase going straight down, as well as the sounds of animal noises ahead. Three, based on the noises, and one of them sounds large. These must be the guardians.
Dexter Arkwright	Dexter's just about done reaching the end when the explosives detonate in the maw of the velociraptor. It detonates violently, blood and viscera strewing around the cat door. This follows with the rest of the raptors panicking at the light and the noise, and loud squawking fills the area. It's a sign of alarm. And down below, there's a loud roar, and the sound that something's coming this way, towards the stairs. Looks like whatever happened, they're not happy about this. As Dexter lands, he moves over to Krys inside his orange spacesuit, moving to try and grab the detonator out of her hands in a burst of impulse. "What did you do?! Warn us next time!"
Lemeza Kosugi	So far, so good! Everyone's got a way across the beginner's deathtrap, even Dexter! His suit seems like it's working well enough in aiding exploration, without breaking anything. Turning off the traps is easy enough-- no. Oh no. Oh HELL no. Gideon orders Krysanthe to 'shoot the savages', the femdroid scatters explosives with the intent to destroy, and the two are showing every sign of blowing the place sky-high. No. Lemeza isn't about to let another August run amok. Actually, this Gideon is infinitely WORSE than August, since he's not at all remorseful! Looks like it's fightin' time. First objective, take down the immediate threat. He can't do much about the explosives already scattered, but he can deal with the source. Lemeza draws his whip and LASHES out at the closest rifle Krysanthe has on her person, moving to disarm her before she can use it to hurt any more of the dinosaur creatures. He accompanies his actions with an uncharacteristically morbid ultimatum. "You will not be continuing. These dinosaurs are intelligent. They wrote the words on the murals. They likely built this place. You will not harm them any further, and I am going to guarantee that. Welcome to your grave."
Orchid	Some of the spiders might get hit by the explosives being flung around. The good news is that C4 is a stable explosive, and won't go off with something like a little thump. Or a bullet, for that matter. Then again, this might draw them to the attention of the little raptors. Then again, it winds up being the explosion that kills the spider. Oh well, at least they're cheap to replace, another one heading to the same cat door to see if the raptors are going to be fleeing. For her part, Orchid is holding her head in her hands. If this robot keeps attacking intelligent life like this, Orchid may be required to... well, report her to the Maverick Hunters. At least Lemeza is doing something to help. The Maverick virus isn't really a thing out here, so Orchid may wind up pushing for capture and trial.
Staren	The feed from Orchid's cameras shows... intelligent dinosaurs. One picks up an explosive. "Wait--" But instead, dinosaurs and tempers both explode. Lemeza goes all grimdark killer mode. Staren holds a hand out towards Lemeza and a hand out towards the android, frowning. "STOP IT. Both of you. They killed a bunch of humans, we killed one of them. But we can at least TRY to communicate with the survivors. None of us needs to die here. They're not a threat to us. Maybe they're intelligent monsters that can't be reasoned with, maybe not. Let's find out TOGETHER. Okay?" If the fight doesn't stop, Staren DOES work on trying to take down Gideon Kaspar first, with shock bullets, and then using missiles that explode into quick-hardening foam to try and contain his android. Of course, if only ONE side stops, Staren works on trying to subdue the other one.
Tomoe	Tomoe keeps moving so she doesn't end up getting cut up by the traps, so far they haven't lost anyone so it's all good in her book. Dex's gear gets out his gear and that? That gets gaping look from her as he has some kind of space suit. Still they are all clear now and the objective is at hand or it seems to be. She sees how things are turning now as she falls to side with Lemeza. She's with Stren she does like to talk first, going in and shooting up everything? Ya it's not going to go well there as she looks to Lemeza. She moves to back up Staren, but she looks like she's ready to take out the android if it comes to it. "ENOUGH OF THIS." She's clealry ready to intercept things, it seems someone doesn't hate him but it's clear? Tomoe is an incha way from going after the Android and perhaps more.
Gideon Kaspar	"A carnivorous dinosaur crawled out of a hole that is part of a death trap gauntlet. The explosives were exactly for that purpose; covering our six o'clock." Krysanthe states matter of factly to Dexter. In fact, she manages to do so with an almost-monotone even while the ominous roar nearly drowns out the last part of her sentence, looking idiosyncratically, rather than bravely, unfazed. Lemeza suddenly takes gross objection to this operation conduct, and the Tactical Doll has mostly the same tone for him, except then it abruptly plunges a metaphorical octave darker. "Human beings are intelligent too, yet you have no compunctions about killing each other." At least she doesn't seem intent on blowing up any more velociraptors, since Lemeza immediately occupies her full attention by suddenly going on the attack. The whip connects directly with her SMG, despite Krys pulling it back at the last second, such that the lash coils tightly around the weapon's elongated barrel shroud. When Lemeza yanks back on it for the disarm, she slaps the shroud down with the heel of her hand to dislodge it into a spin, and then the whip finishes the job by violently unscrewing the attachment from its threading and pulling it flying through the air. The Tactical Doll doesn't waste any time; she squeezes the trigger the second she has a clear line of sight, and the glimmering amber of her eyes goes strangely flat as her head tilts to the holosights and twenty rounds rip from the muzzle in the blink of an eye. If Lemeza has been shot at before, the spectacle by comparison is eerie. The gun's muzzle doesn't climb at all, nor does it significantly rock against the shooter's shoulder. She has it on fully automatic, but isn't watching where the rounds go to walk her fire, instead seeming to just 'know' where they are in relation to her, and stitching out an eerily calm and precise diagonal line aimed to catch either an arm or a leg depending on the direction of a dodge, in an unfortunately really narrow corridor with not a lot of safe space to run or dive. It oozes professional killer bodyguard, and the uncanny valley of the not-quite human. It might come off as a little strange when she stops exactly at the precise second Staren yells 'stop' then. She keeps the gun trained directly at Lemeza without flinching, and doesn't lower it, but also leaves off the trigger by a hair. She doesn't even avert her gaze when Dexter swoops in to yank the detonator out of her spare hand. It's Gideon, /still/ at the start of the whole platforming puzzle, who breaks the awkward ceasefire by saying "Not to put it at issue, but did anyone else hear what is probably a bloodthirsty tyrannosaurus?"
Orchid	Orchid sighs, tilting her head back as all this action goes on. "FINE! People! We have two choices. Have this out here and now, where the locals may come and kill us, making most of this moot. Best case, we go back where we came from with someone to put into jail pending trial, with, and this is the important part, NONE of whatever treasure or knowledge might be here! Or we can stop trying to kill each other, explore this place, deal with the likely T-Rex, and file charges later. Lemeza, I'll even help you with the paperwork." The trouble with being a Paladin is that you always have to stick up for doing things by the book.
Dexter Arkwright	As the fighting happens...Dexter doesn't actually leap to other side, instead making sure he has the detonator. So as soon as Krys stops and he grabs it out of her hand, Dexter sighs within the suit and moves to put it in his bag. "I'll return this once the fighting's over. Mr. Kosugi, the lady has stopped, so please be a gentleman and put your gun away-" And as soon as Dexter says that, there's a sudden flash of movement on the stairs...and two creatures bolt up them, incredibly quickly. They're larger raptors, the size of Great Danes, with sharp claws and teeth, moving way faster than they have any right to. They're also feathered, and move to bumrush the group, one of them slamming into Dexter, and another aiming to launch at Lemeza. Dexter is sent flying backwards, landing on his back but seemingly fine, as he reaches to draw a gun out of his bag and shoot the raptor...and the bullet slams into its shoulder and barely draws blood. It's way more durable than a giant lizard should be. Though that's not the only threat. The larger threat leaps up the staircase in a single jump, a massive dinosaur the size of two people and twice as long, with elongated front claws and a massive tail. It immediately charges into the fray, moving to slam its tail into Staren and Orchid, and try and claw up Kris in the process! The hallway's barely big enough to fit it...yet it's manuvering smoothly, knowing just how to coil its tail to avoid slamming into the walls. It's probably intelligent to some degree.
Staren	A lot of things happen! "Hey, wait!" Staren shouts at the new raptors, and then the... bigger dinosaur shows up -- Staren reflexively activates his wings and backs away, still not attacking yet. "HEY! Hey, if you're intelligent, the translation effect should be working! Look, this is your chance, if you understand me, STOP and we'll talk this out or write or whatever!" This is pretty much testing the limit of how much of a chance he's willing to give monsters who are actively trying to maul his acquaintances!
Lemeza Kosugi	Aw crap. This is going to be a tall order. Immediately, the fight is rather lopsided - battle-ready metal woman vs fleshy archaeologist isn't exactly in favor of the latter - and damn near the entire rest of the party is dead set on breaking up the fight. Lemeza /might/ get some assistance from Orchid... /if/ he stops fighting. First things first, though, minimizing the number of bullet holes he's about to get. He quickly gets his shield up, but not quickly enough to stop the initial spray; he catches a couple bullets to his off-hand arm before the shield can stop the rest of them. And, yeah, a straight duel against Krys will not end well for Lemeza. How-ev-er, the main concern is eminently squishy... Lemeza thinks quickly. Dropping the fight and continuing on would mean allowing Gideon to threaten all the treasure, meaning reconciliation and exploration is entirely out of the question. Taking the fight outside is an option, but risks missing an opportunity to remove a major threat to future operations. Continuing the fight here and now is the best course of action, so he gets slammed into by one of the raptors he's trying to defend. That is, of course, entirely unlike what Lemeza had actually intended. He's shot up, and now he's being launched back towards Gideon. All right, this actually kind of works... Lemeza hastily draws his revolver and, seemingly haphazardly, ends up shooting a couple bullets at the no-longer-swinging blades. It's only /seemingly/ haphazard, though, as the bullets carom off the blades and head straight for Gideon himself! In all of this, he doesn't actually take any actions to deal with the raptor. Could be a problem.
Dexter Arkwright	The dinosaur just roars in Staren's face. It doesn't seem to be able to talk, and unfortunately, diplomacy isn't going to be an option.
Orchid	And action of one sorts turns into action of another sort! Orchid doesn't like attacking things, even if they really don't want to talk to her. So she takes the first hit (mostly from surprise) in her midsection, her light armor cracking under the blow of the tail. She tucks into a roll, coming to a stop at the wall. "Shudda known better," she mutters to herself, as she starts summoning her spiders. Those spiders will jump over the big dino, starting to wrap it in sticky silk. Specifically, to wrap those legs to the body, and to wrap the jaws shut. The reploid pulls off her backpack, pulling out the first-aid kit, that she feels will be needed soon. At Staren's suggestion, she sends about 5 drones down the tunnel, to try and find out what the 'treasure' here actually is. Probably not one of Dr' Light's capsules this time, as awesome as that might be.
Gideon Kaspar	When much bigger and scarier carnivorous dinosaurs come running up the stairs and cramming themselves into the hallway, of much more Hollywood fans and claws and rippling muscles proportions, Krys pivots on her heel to face them down without a second thought, keeping her iron solid firing stance and tapping one magazine out with another in the blink of an eye, the second marked with a stripe of orange tape likely to denote a different ammo type inside. Before she even gets to shooting the giant, bloodthirsty reptiles however, her situational awareness sensors pick up that Lemeza is in fact not done with this, and has elected to totally ignore the dinosaurs to go for Gideon of all things. The Tactical Doll is there way faster than Lemeza is. She blitzes over the obstacle course the same way she had before at double time. She's still only fast enough to get in the way. Both bullets come from odd angles and slam into her torso, tearing her dress, piercing her skin, and flattening on hard composite beneath. She staggers back under the heavy revolver bullets, just keeping a grip on her submachine gun as she bumps back into Gideon, red starting to stain her white blouse. The commander himself catches her with one arm tight around her waist. Looking over her shoulder, all good humour and adventurous spirit has disappeared from his face in the blink of an eye, and left behind a startling, ice cold, gunmetal grey stare that looks at Lemeza as if he were a growling, feral dog. In that position, it's really, really hard to see the man's hand pulling out of the inside of the military jacket draped over his shoulders and his suit, and in the space of a heartbeat, snapping a handgun up from under Krysanthe's arm and firing four shots back to back at Lemeza like . . . well, a trained military officer. At nearly point blank. "And to think the lovely lady actually stopped for you too. Clearly I should have specified to shoot 'all' savages on sight." He says in bland and dispassionate tones. He has the benefit of it, since Lemeza is between him at the start of the hall and the dinosaurs surging forward from the end of it.
Staren	It's chaos! And then Staren sees Lemeza confronting a suddenly-bloodied tactical doll guarding Gideon Kaspar. Oh for fuck's sake... Staren flies back through the swinging hafts, and tries to tackle Lemeza, his armor electrifying to try and taze the explorer into unconsciousness. "WE are DONE HERE!" He glances up at Gideon and the android. "Whatever YOU decide to do here's on YOU." Ideally he'd then drag Lemeza off... but is there really any chance this could be resolved that easily?
Dexter Arkwright	Orchid manages to wrap up the bigger dinosaur in silk, trapping it still. It's trying to break out of the silk, but for now, it's unable to continue attacking, restrained. Dexter is fighting one of the raptors, moving from shooting to punching it in melee...and seems to be able to knock it back long enough to get back onto his feet, moving to join up with Staren to his complete hesitation. The other raptor, though, isn't done with them. It lunges away from Lemeza, moving to target Orchid, who is the most 'open' of the group. It's trying to grab her by the leg with its mouth, and hopefully distract her long enough for the bigger one to escape. Meanwhile, the spiders going down will find something: a massive metal cylinder on what appears to be tracks inside a wide room, with the tracks going downwards. There's a big heart symbol over the wall...but a better glance at what exactly it is would require a more focused examination.
Lemeza Kosugi	"Then SHOOT YOURSELF." Any willingness Lemeza had to break off the confrontation, if it ever existed, is completely gone. On top of that, even if everyone gets out of this alive, Lemeza's made a mental note to hunt Gideon until there's no Gideon left to hunt. Any threat August poses pales in comparison to this merchant of death. Unfortunately, he's unable to actually /do/ anything for the time being. Raptor's sent him flying, Gideon's firing point blank, and Staren's... turning on a fellow Concord member? This is bad. His main arm gets shot. Staren's armor electrifies him. He's got just enough sense to try to roll Staren into Gideon, so that maybe he can actually catch Gideon and his equally-evil deathbot in the ball of stun. At this point, whatever happens next may as well be up to fate. At least the raptor broke off to chase someone else.
Orchid	Such wild chaos! Okay, Orchid's spiders go deeper in. Maybe they'll see enough to make this madness worth it, maybe not. Orchid herself is evading the deinonychus going for her leg, using those dash-boots again to try and get out. As she does so, she'll try and scoop up Dexter and Tomoe. At this point, while she has the skill and equipment to repair Krys better than anyone else here, she and Gideon are on their own. "Time to get while we still can," she tells them.
Dexter Arkwright	As various parties retreat, the dinosaurs don't actually pursue when stopped, stunned, or evaded. They stay in the hallway, growling and snarling before presumably returning down to their den down below. Orchid's spiders find that the metal cylinder is some sort of advanced technology, based on the lights its giving off and the conduits it seemed to be tied to, 'glowing' power lines, attaching it to what appears to be a call button attached to the track. It's probably some sort of transit car...but how it works or why it exists is a question for another day.