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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 emergency digging situations, a hefty battery-powered devide that can hang off a belt without much issue. Those without Matter Manipulators of their own can use it.

    Unfortunately, it looks like the Starbound Core Fleet is still recovering after yesterday's heated battle. Their proper, high-grade equipment is in the shop, 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 backup and handling materials pickup and storage for them. 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 activate the lights on their armor, lighting the environment up, but it's not enough to beat back the shadows entirely... Just enough to show the star-like hints of gleaming crystaline structure. Welcome to the GLITTERING DEPTHS. The group should figure out how they'd like to arrange their advance on the way down.
Nozomi Houken     It's a chance for Nozomi to go out on a mission with people she's met and wants to help, where that mission does /not/ involve her being in mortal peril. In theory. So of course she's going to jump at a chance for it. Those strange space-y folks have been fairly good to her, so if there's something she can do in return, she'd very much like to.

    Granted, she has no idea what she's actually going to do here. But they'll find something she can help with, right?

    At the very least, she's keeping up for now, sticking close to Pavo and looking around at the scenery of the Erchius mine with wide-eyed wonder. Space(tm) is not a thing she does often. And this is even what her world would consider a fairly sci-fi, fantastical version of Space. So for once, her natural shyness is tempered, and she's looking this way and that at glowing pools and crystals and a huge and gleaming natural cave, and... "What... what is that stuff, anyway? I... I heard, you guys needed help mining it, but..."

    Of course, right beside her is Taiga, but for once he's actually rather quiet. It might have something to do with the fact she's a little more out of her shell than usual, and thus needs less 'comforting presence'. Or possibly he's just being a lazy cat.
Souji Murasame Souji is present to assist in the investigation of the lunar depths. It's been a busy week with the fall of the head of the Shivan Confederacy, which should lead to someone more reasonable taking his place... Or the entire group crumbling into its component parts once more as the status quo returns.

"Barbarians." Souji mutters to himself at the thought.

However, he has People working on that already, allowing him the freedom to deal with this situation. He is not unfamiliar with the nanoskins, having visited the facility many times before. The feeling of an ultrathin barrier of atmosphere around him is unusual, making his Ramuhan senses crawl a bit... But far better that then the void of space.

His meeting with the Flotilla members is marked with a salute, the operations team being some of his most profitabl and diligent Multiversal assets. Despite being paid several times more than his other teams, their work continues to turn him significant profits. He makes sure they understand that he values that connection, which is one of several reasons why he is present in person.

Another reason, of course, is the ancient adage about how people who don't on raids don't get to roll on loot drops, but that's another story entirely.

The trip down the elevator is beisk, ending at the top of the complicates stairwells. Once Souji notices the gleaming crystal compounds, he kneels next to them, examining them intently as if affixing the appearance of the material in his mind. Without a word, he then stands and looks to the others on the expedition team. "If there are no objections, we can proceed in standard formation. Durable units front and center, with scouts on the flank. Strikers and healers in the middle and artillery bringing up the rear."

Nozomi's question garners a momentary glance from Souji, but he doesn't seem to radiate disapproval at her yet. "The liquid is of a rare material called Erchius. This raw form is used in special types of technology as fuel for space-travel reactions. The crystals are extremely rare and possess a number of unusual reactions and capabilities that we are still in the process of understanding. We are here to collect samples and ascertain the safety of this excavation area."
Corona Arclite The industrial drill is a nice backup, though Corona's got her resonate mining hammer, too. With the Oxygen Nanoskin and the miner's lamp her hat already sports the vixen space-cowgirl is already pretty well set for the venture into the depths of the moon.

She crouchs on the edge of an elevator platform, but much like the Starbounders' lights her lamp can only cast so much illumination below.

"Explains why they stopped with the big drills, Ah reckon. Betcha just knockin' one of those formations loose the wrong way would light the whole place up."

She hmms softly as she stands up, then adjusts one of her gloves to switch it to the grappler device. "So, question is, are the pools of pinkness safe t'stand in, or do we gotta find stable footin'. Or hangin' space, as the case may be."
Jayale     It had been over a decade since Jayale had last actually been out and in the 'field' attempting to get crystals like this. In her own Galaxy, such sites were largely destroyed, or kept under tight control by the Empire. Her own ability to get crystals, or even go obtain resources herself, had been limited to dealing with Black Markets as well as individual sellers. Which is why when she heard of a mission for others to go get crystals that had a myriad of uses...

    It piqued the older Miralukan Jedi's interests.

    She had interacted with many materials in her lifetime, and many crystals at that, for use in lightsaber creation or research. And yet here she was, with the opportunity to look into the capacity of a 'Multiversal' crystal in Lightweaponry technology.

    Thus, here she was, possibly one of the oldest of the group outside of those who were unaging or whatnot, going along with whatever protective requirements were offered and not complaining about any. Even if the stuff she was having to carry was a bit heavy for her tastes. The only time any of her capabilities were able to be witnessed was when she held onto the ladder and allowed herself to slowly float down the depths towards the bottom, holding herself up with a rather novel application of using the Force. It wasn't actually all that efficient at descending safely, but with a ladder nearby it was actually quite convenient, and allowed her to focus on other matters.

    Like actually looking around. Thanks to having no eyes, her kind naturally came to see through the Force. And on top of that, with her being a Jedi and having learned through the Luka Sene as well, her own ability to 'see' things was quite large. Darkness did nothing to stop her sight, and even to an extent walls did not either. Anything that gave off a natural energy, gave off any kind of life at all, she could see. Which meant when she got towards the bottom the older woman smiled a bit, landing soundlessly on the ground and beginning to step forward without any kind of worry or hesitation. To others, though - a blindfolded woman walking in the darkness in a large mineshaft cave? Might seem a bit awkward. She didn't seem to be stumbling though. And then she stops as she hears Souji speaking, and says, "If you like, despite my age, I can see perfectly down here. I need no light. I might not be the most durable, but I will not argue against any decisions of those otherwise here."
Alexis Maaka     The OXYGEN NANOSKIN actually does benefit Alexis for this operation. Her STALKER suit may be totally sealed from the outside, but she still needs something for SPACE STUFF to not suffocate from a lack of air. In any case, she shows up dressed for combat, with her STALKER suit sealed and appropriately scary looking for any pirates that might jump the group.

    Hard to say if it works on predators, but that's what guns are for. She's brought an old-ass blaster rifle for this operation, circa the Clone Wars to be specific from Juno's world to be specific. Laser guns tend to be a lot more sensible picks for low gravity work, not to mention just general operation IN SPACE to boot. She slings the Deecee, her hip carrying a DL-44 blaster while she's at it.

    As she arrives, she takes a brief moment to give Souji a friendly pat on the arm. "Boss. Mithril-3 reporting for duty." She salutes casually, before she adjusts the big industrial drill on her back. "I'll go ahead and scout to see what we're dealing with here, if nobody minds." The cyborg offers, before she begins to jog towards the big shaft, drawing her grappling wire to get set up for rappelling downwards into the depths, which she does in short order.

    Switching on night vision, she makes her descent slow and cautious, making sure not to go too fast and lose the others.
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone Yamakawa had been making ready for this trip she was thankful for the Oxygen nanoskin as it did away with the need to have a bulky space suit of some sort. She also didn't want to set how suited for space her shell really was a good idea she's also was thinking she really did need to get, she's also carrying a drill which she's very thankful for and she keeps thinking she needs to get a Matter Manipulator the more she thinks about it still she's pretty much ready to go at this point.

She's lucky she didn't get torn up in the assault on the Russian Mob operation she's still looking concerned at the rest of the Foltilla.

"I really need to stop dinking about and get a Matter Manipulator but this is something."

All the space travel she's doing would make a lot of people back home jelous and she honestly hoped the Multiverse was the kick in the ass the world powers of her world to get out into space. Still this is oddly a wonderful distraction for her away from all of this, she'd not been so foolish as to come unarmed but rather than her normal bullet based weapons? She's packing an X-COM laser rifle, she figured Shen and the Doc would love some data on this.

"So we got to get down get the Erchius and then get out?"

It seeme simple enough as they arrived down the lift and she let out a low whistle.

"I'm going to be careful and assume that we should not be taking a swim in it? Corona."

She looks over to Nozomi and gives her and Taiga a grin.

"IT's been a while and hey many hands make light work, right? Glad to have you both with us."

Jayale is new factor as the cyborg looks the Jedi over for a long moment she's just trying to get a feel for her.

"I'm Kotone Yamakawa and you are?"

Kotone might be mistaken for a droid at first but there's that last bit of subborn life clinging to the shell that she now considers her body. She also seem glad to see Alexis there and sthen she's heading out ahead of the group. Souji being there was a pretty big thing she understood that him being there showed just how much interest he had in this fuel source too.

"Hey Corona at some point I should take you out for food back home, it will be fun. Well then the work here's done heck I'll invite anyone here who wants to come for a bite to eat."
Rory White     Rory White is not the most physical of beings. Climbing ladders? That's enough of a challenge for her right there, let alone doing it in cramped, unmapped quarters... well, startlingly enough she doesn't need a Nanoskin for breathing, but readily accepts one for its protection against general background radiation - which any vacuum environment in a solar system will face plenty of. Saying nothing of whatever strange stuff might await below.

    Still, she's hanging near the middle of the group, periodically affixing tiny devices to the walls. These are wireless cameras and microphones, linked together to create a decentralized panoptic auto-map. Far behind, a Delta Fork is overseeing a handful of industrial drones running infrastructure - power cables - in anticipation of extended operations. But that's not so important now, is it?

    Once she's down into the GLITTERING DEPTHS, the 'female' AGI remains... mostly expressionless, but there's subtle clues about her feelings. Her eyes are wide and head swivels about rapidly as she takes in the amazing sight.

    "Simply stunning!"

    Her job is less digging and hauling and more about studying and mapping... and overseeing the operation from a logistical standpoint. Maintaining a panoptic awareness of the situation is paramount to that...

    And so a brigade of AIs and multi-threaded consciousness she's doing just that, unseen to most. Behind those blue eyes are simple optics and behind that, a Cyberbrain that's simply abuzz with digital tasks. Dozens of camera feeds and AI-driven messages shuffled, collated, and logged to maintain a tactical map of the tunnels!
Starbound Flotilla     Nozomi's here, which means Albert sticks near her, ready to defend. Not many wordsw exchanged about that, but he affirms Souji's statement. "Psionically-reactive material. Behaves in a way you'll think of as magic. Both of you keep your eyes out." He grunts and moves along.
Starbound Flotilla     Moonfin responded to Souji's salute with a more eastern style bow. He always seems to insist on representing the Core Fleet when they deal with Souji. The fishman gives his approval here, later, when Souji gives his advice. "A tradition that's wise to adhere to." Is all his comment on that particular arrangement.
Xiao Li Yu      With the fall of the Shivan Confederacy, of which she busy helping clear out the lower floors of Harald's tower, things finally seemed like they would calm down in Galianda for a while. With that situation finally out of the way...it was time for some dungeon crawling!

     ...That's pretty much what they're doing, right?

     Right?

     Well whatever. The researcher had accompanied Souji for this outing, in her own interest of finding rare materials for research. OXYGEN NANOSKIN and DRILL prepared and ready, Xiao smiled mostly to herself as she took in the immediate surroundings. "Hmhm~ A field trip, a field trip~ I wonder what kind of loot we'll find besides the target? I hope there's other things." With mPad in hand, she casually beginning to set up various apps to record and analyze incoming visual and audio data. Always best to have records.

     Keeping in line with standard dungeon crawling formation, she stayed near the middle as the group moved along. "Ah, but I must ask-" Xiao seemed to recall something, turning to...Oh, there was Seft. "I'm assuming there are things in there that will try to kill us." Because that was typically the case. "Do we know what's further in? ...For planning purposes, of course."
Nozomi Houken     Souji speaking up seems to surprise Nozomi, who looks up at him and then instinctively falls back a step or two - falling back behind Pavo and Albert (to whom she finds herself grateful for the protection) slightly in the process. Even if he's not trying to be intimidating or disapproving, she seems the type to be easily intimidated anyway. But she does respond to his explanation with a polite, short-lived bow. "Th-thanks, I... I'll try to be careful. If there's anything... any way I can help with the sample collection, I will." Taiga cants his head slightly and adds, "Despite her timid demeanor, Nozomi has exceptionally steady, precise hands. If you show her what to do, it should be quite easy for her. As for myself, I am best in a 'roaming attacker' role. I have high agility and fair attack capability in both melee and ranged roles."
Starbound Flotilla     George chuckles at Corona. "Yeah, you can pro'lly stand in it. Just don't drink it and we'll all be good. For real, though, don't drink it." He laughs a bit, and says, "Oh, and don't look too close at it, sometimes it goes a little backwards in time, stuff like that."
Starbound Flotilla     Jayale heads in, and her Force Senses will be immediately feeling something unusual. She can see with all the standard clarity, yes, but the gleaming surfaces of stray Erchius crystals she detects will feel 'resonant', almost mirror-like, force-wise. These crystals react to psionic impulse and noise, it seems, and there's already a rather heavy buildup of psionic noise that they've accumulated over a long time. She can see through the dark, though, to the passage further below. The cave slants intensely down at the back, but there's no visible threats just yet...
Septette Arcubielle      With warmly-glowing eyes and an amiable smile, Septette nods to the others as they enter the facility, and steps onto the elevator with just a little hesitation. Thankfully, it's sturdier than it looks, and no excess load warnings trip as a result of her presence. With that assured, the mechanical girl leans back in one of the front corners of the elevator, opposite the controls, and looks over the other Elites with an inquisitive eye.

     There are lots of new faces here today- several of them are people she's never seen in person, while others are completely unknown to her. It makes Septette a tad worried to work with people whose methods and capabilities she's unfamiliar with, but hopefully they can maintain some semblance of coordination. "Good afternoon, everyone! I shall take point, if that's alright," she quickly volunteers. "Durable. Not too slow." It might seem a bit unusual to those who haven't seen her work: normally the vanguard would wear some semblance of armor. But if she doesn't need a drill or an oxygen field, perhaps she doesn't need protective gear, either.

     When the elevator stops, the little war machine among the first to step out, walking swiftly towards the natural-looking formations while soaking in as much of the scenery as she can. Septette isn't in a hurry, but she tries to remain a few paces ahead of her more squishy comrades just in case. "This feels just like exploring back home- though with a tacnet, I suppose we don't need to keep a conventional map, do we?"
Starbound Flotilla     The vanguard group is composed. Alexis and Jayale can use their senses to scope out the natural cave environment. Septette works well as the party's tank, and Taiga as an associated striker. Maaka, for her part, can use more technological senses to find heat signatures left behind by passing touch, still retaining the slight heat in the moon's microatmosphere. Something organic or heat-based is here, but not very recently. As the group progresses, those trace bits of heat get more dense, meaning something is active farther inside.
Starbound Flotilla     The camera feeds are distorted and warped by the odd tugging that Erchius has on reality, but not so much so that they're unusable. Collating it all is revealing that everything is just slightly skewed, with no objective absolute accuracy to what's observed. However, if Rory White analyzes this in a multi-threaded way, she can track the consistency and inconsistency. It seems to be centered in dense clusters. With some triangulation, and enough data from the others, maybe she can lead the group to the source of that inconsistent subjectivity effect...?
Corona Arclite Once they're on the move into the caverns Corona keeps her gloves set on grappler, just in case she needs to quickly save herself from a fall. Or a collapse. Or get across a pit. She's been in normal mines enough times to know to be ready for such things. It was a little different on a moon, but a mine is a mine.

She does stray to the side of the group, unclipping the resonate hammer from her tool belt as she does. Makes a minor adjustment to the settings, as she doesn't want to actually break strata yet, but still gives it a good tap against the cavern wall. Things aren't quite 'seen' properly down here, so she's trying to use her exceptional hearing abilities to gauge what the moon is made of that way instead. You could insert some adage about sticking to what you know best in here, even if that's not 100% accurate to the occasion.
Starbound Flotilla     Seft gives a nervous nod to Xiao Li, her visor flickering to display a nervous <_<;; face. She seems anxious. "Affirming. Any dense cluster of Erchius Crystals in contact with each other amplify the effect of accumulating psionic effects. The results are often spectacularly dangerous for life that exists in the standard way we know it." Then her visor displays a ^_^;. "Assuring. But do not worry, it is usually not so lethal that it would be too dangerous, especially for a group like this. Think of it the way you think of dangerous caves in your homeworld."
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone Yamakawa gets the warning from George that yes don't go drinking the pink stuff, she does wonder how it might interact with her given her own nature but well she'll have to be careful on that. Still it was onewards to mining Nozomi seems to be well doing her best and is ready to mine, and Taiga is on roaving combat duty..

"Is there anything else we should know about digging up this stuff?"

She also gives Sepetette a look that seems to show she's pretty happy to see her here.

<<No kidding, I'm glad we got the tac net and Rory's mapping to help this place is a maze, it's like some of the old mines I seen back in BC.>>

With that she's going to keep with the mining group for now as she starts looking for stuffd suff she can mine. She's also using her optics to look for anything that's out of sort.

"Hey Seft so what your saying is we need to break up any large clusters the moment we find them before they react to us?"
Alexis Maaka     Predictably, Alexis links up with everybody who has HUD software of some sort, especially Kotone and Rory. Anything she sees on the way down, everyone will see as she continues her descent. THe heat sigs do cause a raised eyebrow from her. "That is weird." She murmurs, spying traces of something organic based while she continues to slide downwards into the darkness.

    She begins to do some scans to figure out what else she can find out about this weird moon of psychic space rocks, swapping from night vision to thermal for a brief moment.
Jayale     It was so strange to be in a place where apparently her own ability to see was not only possibly a little dangerous, but not certain! Was this truly what all of the Multiverse was like, or did she just happen to come across a strange area? Though it did leave her to wonder... just how such a crystal would react to being placed inside of a lightsaber. Even a lightsaber built specifically for such - if it reacted to the Force being used in such a fashion... it could be quite unstable.

    Though unstable crystals were not unheard of even for Lightsaber crystals. It left partially unstable blades. But this?

    Had her feeling young again. "I will follow along however others like." And then towards the one who had attempted to ask about her she offered, "Jayale. Miraluka." And for the moment she left it at that. Though she might have come to believe those in the Union meant her no harm, she's not just going to freely broadcast her Jedi nature without a need. Though...

    "I would like to try something, give me just a moment." Pulling out a container she had with her in a satchel, Jayale floats out a relatively generic, by all terms, lightsaber crystal. And then the crystal starts to float away from the group towards the various crystals and substances down here, trying to see how they react towards other substances. A good way to test in her view. Was it just materials, or living things? Others might already know, but she didn't.
Starbound Flotilla     Corona's vibrations resonate through the structure, and the data that it feeds back lets Rory get a high-density map of the tunnel system. There's a massively complex series of caves, tunnels, and assorted chambers here, in varying states of navigability. This ought to let Rory plot a route through the complex maze to where they need to head!
Rory White     Rory's rather puzzled at first. It takes her a good thirty seconds to cross-verify facts and scientific data with what she's seeing and quickly comes up with the observer effect in quantum mechanics. Which is just plain CREEPY, when it comes up on this scale. That should NOT be happening at such... down to Earth situations like this. AT ALL.

    Hints of fear flicker. This massive unknown has her immediately on edge. Is the Erchius actively DANGEROUS or just passively strange?

    But the worst of the interference is quickly located and by drawing points of reference...

    COordinates are quickly pinned down via simple triangulation.

    "Should we head there?"
Souji Murasame Souji normally seems disassociated from the environment around him, willfully separating himself from the progress of events until the point where he needs to intervene.

This is not apparent here. His eyes are intent as he taps the side of his Moogle Glasses and a light turns on, shining out to augment the various sources present. "My glasses provide limited automapping capabilities." He mentions, when the subject of navigation comes up. "It can be useful sometimes." Souji is paying close attention to the surroundings. While he has no unusual senses, having another regular pair of eyes on the situation as it develops will be useful nonetheless with the number of people who are using their various scanning methodologies.

Perhaps the environment does more than simply require a nanoskin, for Souji. He's not even pestering Kyra. Something has him on edge here. "There is nothing to be worried about." He says simply, treading forward and picking a path through the area. Despite the assurances that the Erchius is safe, he avoids it when possible, perhaps on habit. "Signal if anyone locates a threat, it would be unfortunate if we ended up ambushed somehow."

When Rory mentions a coordinate point, Souji looks over. "It is as useful a navigation point as any. Give us a route."
Starbound Flotilla     Kotone finds a few stray chunks of crystaline mineral. They seem to have very frequently resolved themselves into a squared-off six-point shape, always in the same six directions. What's with that? Well, the hefty industrial drill will let her chip away at the moon rock around it until it's excavated, but she'll have to use very steady hands and very dedicated efforts to split one crystal from the other. They grow together in an uncanny way... Almost organically. Like veins connecting them.
Starbound Flotilla     Jayale's tests will find unusual response. The Erchius only seems to reflect the psionic impulse, seeming receptive to minds, but not to other power. But refracting her own psionic impulses through the crystal has a reaction as well. It seems that the mind itself is the necessary component to achieve a reaction... Which explains the intense buildup of energy that's already there. People have been broadcasting thoughts to the sky for hundreds of thousands of years.
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone Yamakawa notices the odd crystals and takes the drill to crystal it will take a boit of work and a steady hand. It's a good thing her hands are no longer flesh and blood. She's going to work at drilling it free to take the crystal with her she may be able to put it to use. She'll carefully get the rock about it cleared away then work the drill to get the crystal free, before she'll catch up with the others. She does not want to get left behind in a place like this.
Xiao Li Yu      Xiao nodded to Seft, a hand coming to her chin. "I see, so these crystals...resonate with one another, creating a reaction that can be construed as dangerous in the traditional sense. At least when they come in close proximity." A smile formed.

     "Fascinating. So then when they come into actual contact, the psionic effects are amplified...Ah, but then, does the size matter? I imagine that bigger crystals contacting would create a more sizable effect. Something much more dangerous than can be traditionally dealt with...Oh I can't wait to find out just what happens!" Let's no wish for dangerous things to happen, and in even worse form than predicted.

     Rory's mention of coordinates earns her a glance from Xiao. She then glanced down at her pad, receiving the data over the link. "Oh. My, this is quite something here. Far more involved than I would have assumed." She tapped her cheek in thought as her eyes roamed across the screen. "Well, for one, I do believe that heading to the most obvious point of interest. Detours run further risk of unneeded events."

     She smirked after and added. "Ah, but then there may be interesting things along those detours." She looked up in thought as they moved along. "Alas, what a conundrum."
Septette Arcubielle      Septette shows little interest in mining the crystals right now- there are other people, other machines, who can do that far more efficiently after these caverns are secured. She knows her specialization. That doesn't stop her from breaking off a small fragment of crystalline erchius with her bladelike fingers, however; it would be imprudent to wait until after the mission to do any research on the stuff. After all, that knowledge could come in handy during their explorations.

     As she walks near the front of the group, the yggdroid holds up the crystal fragment and stares at it intently. She tries placing some useless, temporary enchantments on it, just to measure how it responds, before cautiously trying to raise and lower its temperature magically to determine whether it's unusually reactive.

     "I disagree, Albert," she says after a few moments of silence. "This doesn't look 'unnatural' to me. Unusual, yes. But the patterns themselves seem like they'd belong in a living thing, not in a geological or artificial structure." This place's layout brings back memories of the Claret Hollows in a vague, thematic way: caverns of flesh and blood that grew and tunneled through rock. "Are we certain it's dead?"
Starbound Flotilla     Septette will find that the crystal is actually extremely enchantment-friendly. In fact, more so than it seemed at first blush, more and more ehnchantments make it more and more receptive over time. Adjusting and lowering its temperature seems to depend on which configurations of magic she uses. It doesn't have any set conductivity, but rather, it assumes the conductivity that the magic technique used to heat or cool it is specialized for. In a sense, very reactive.
    "No." Albert says, tensely, to Septette. "It doesn't matter if it's dead or not. We know it's still dangerous."
Starbound Flotilla     Rory's coordinates and the scans that were made can guide the group. It looks like Maaka's scans turn up something as well. The organic traces are the heat itself, retained in the lacking atmosphere. Something alive, or at least something that emits heat when it touches things... Like organic life. These traces get more and more dense as they approach the target area that Rory has identified, the source of the unusual quantum effects, Disparate Subjectivity.

    But before they reach the detected focus of it all, they find something far, far more unusual. One of the chambers on the way in has an ancient, aging wooden gate, a Hylotl torii, constructed within it. It stands before one of the natural exits that moves towards the central cluster, and beyond it, one can barely see religious Hylotl artifacts, strange eastern-inspired aesthetics built right into the natural moonstone.

    There is a humanoid form kneeling in front of it. It gleams. Jayale will detect additional Erchius crystals within the body, but no mind or spirit that the Force can detect. The humanoid form is heavily armored with ancient Starbound-'verse Durasteel in a traditional Hylotl warrior configuration, looking very much like a samurai, with lines of purple marking it as reinforced with some form of Erchius. The body is obfuscated by the armor. The visor, where it would normally display three eyes, is empty.

    Here is where the vanguard will need to decide how best to act. That is because the kneeling form's body has several swords and small blades strapped to it, as well as a dangerous-looking durasteel bow at its back. And Maaka will be able to tell, from her analysis of the heat traces, that this thing has been moving in the past several months, despite the fact that the body is utterly motionless right now. The presumably Hylotl shape is not even breathing...
Nozomi Houken     All the science is beyond Nozomi, who can only sit and listen to everyone talking and... /try/ to understand most of it. Albert's insistence that this is dangerous regardless of other facts, however, has her more noticeably on edge, retreating back into her timid nature and staying where she feels the group can best cover her.

    Taiga, on the other hand, moves up - not so much that he's on the front line, but from here he can easily look past legs and waists to get sensor scans of the strange Hylotl form ahead; and, if need be, he can easily leap over them and start doing what he does best, too. "If this is powered by the same energies which the Erchius respond to, I would strongly suggest caution against psychic attacks," he observes in a calm, matter-of-fact voice.
Corona Arclite Corona pauses as they come into a cavern that is not just barren moonscape. "Okay, this is gettin' a mawht weird." With an armored form littered with crystals inside it standing at the center of the area. "An' creepy."

Instinctively she reachs for her Sweeper, but stops herself before actually drawing the shotgun. She has no idea how the energy produced by pulsarium will interact with erchius' middle finger to reality, and right in middle of the expedition is not a good time to find out. With a huff she removes her hand from the handle, and after a moment instead pulls a different weapon out. Something a little less likely to accidentally exterminate them all in the process. Hopefully.
Rory White     Rory, as always, remains NOT in the front. In the aforementioned formation Souji proposed, she's in the middle in fact. A modified Saucer, ionic drive replaced with six articulated insectile legs, scrabbles along the ceiling, attempting to go forward past the apparent 'Hylotl' and view it from the front, with full thermal and spectroscopic scans turned on it.
Geralt of Rivia      Geralt was delayed. That's the thing about vampire covens, they always take longer to handle than one expects. The nanoskin is a bit unsettling, and he's not sure what he'll do with this 'drill' he's been given, and he's really just here for the payment... But he's not sure if it'll be worth the strange feeling of vertigo from being in this place. If he fell off, wouldn't he just fall forever through the stars?

     For a man who has always liked keeping his boots on the ground, it's a worrying prospect.

     Down the elevators, down the ladders, down the staircases, Geralt has his Witcher senses on full alert for any sign of the others he was supposed to meet. He should find them shortly.
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone Yamakawa gets the report from the team that's ahead they found something and not just anything. She'll deal with her own find later hopefully the crystal won't have been a waste of time for her. She'll keep with the group as they discover the sentry for lack of a better term. She agrees over the radio with Rory about not poking the thing with a stick if they don't have to.

"Tell me about it Corona I don't like the looks of this at all but Rory's right we don't want to set it off if we can avoid doing so."

Yet being on guard is also a wise idea the others seme to talk her out of the idea os just leaving it alone and she moves to act as cover for Rory should her long time friend need it.
Jayale     For the time being, Jayale stays back a little, waiting to see what the others present are actually going to do. The crystal she was using with the Force has since returned to the container it was in and instead, Jayale has taken out a smaller handle-looking cylinder that she leaves held in her hand. Just what she plans to do, if anything, remains to be seen. She was just waiting at the moment, discussing with the others and suggesting her own thoughts on the situation.
Alexis Maaka     "Creepy indeed." Alexis muses, as she inspects the dead fishman warily, curling her wire back up after she reaches solid ground and begins to approach the body. She keeps her blaster on hand, leveling it at the cadaver before lowering the weapon. "This thing's been moving in the past few months, believe it or not. Looks like he's either just finally died, or he's takin' a breather for the moment." Whether or not he IS dead is not something Alexis wants to take chances with, as she begins to bypass the dead Hylotl.

    "I get a feeling we're in for a hell of a fight if we try engaging this guy..." She warns, turning her scanners on the body to doublecheck for life signs of any kind.
Starbound Flotilla     Rory scans the being. It has heat, though it's slowly dissipated into the ground, rather than the air. It seems at least somewhat organic, but much of it is Erchius. That's all Rory gets to scan. When the saucer gets just a bit too close, there's a sudden flash. Absolutely no movement was detected in the motion, and there's no physical reactions in the environment to the motion. The saucer edges just under the border of the torii, and the warrior flickers. One moment, there was nothing, and the next, there is a short blade impaling the scanner drone to the moonrock. The warrior has not moved, but the eyes shine purple. A female voice can be heard, as pretentious and smug as any Hylotl voice. "Do not debase what is sacred. Turn back now, those of profane races. The sanctity of this place is under the protection of the Disphotic Remnant."

    The eyes fade again.
Septette Arcubielle      Everything in Septette's considerable adventuring experience is telling her that this thing is going to activate at some point, and it is not going to be happy to see them. The party's vote seems split on what to do about the crystal warrior, but she decides to take initiative rather than wait around for it to start attacking them, and steps forward as a pair of curved blades fold out of her forearms. "Right. Well. Apologies to those who voted for a more measured approach, but I can't in good conscience risk any of your lives by not disposing of this thing."

     She cautiously decides not to activate any enchantments on her weapons, instead clearing her mind as thoroughly as she can of any thoughts or intentions save for the task at hand. But as soon as it lashes out at the scanner drone, her eyelights flicker off and a cold expression settles on her face. They're not going to turn back just because of something like this.

     She moves to within centimeters of the distance at which the saucer was attacked, superheats her blades in a fraction of a second, and aims a series of blindingly-quick strikes at the back of its neck and any visible concentrations of crystals.
Zwei     Zwei being late is totally a mysterious inhuman intellect thing and not at all related to the player. Shut up.

    It's difficult to tell that anything has popped in for a few moments, even with the handful of neon green lines accentuating Weiss' sealed exoframe deliberately turned on and emitting light. The rest of the armour is so dark, plain and unadorned, and the teleportation itself is so flat, quiet and understated. Of course warping means that she hadn't exactly been far behind the group a minute ago, maybe a level or two above at most, though she'd possibly been chaining them around the place for a while.

    "Geez, trying to map this place through externally is a pain. None of the scan data actually quite matches the reality, and all this erchius eats up most of the frequency anyways so you have to beam around it. I'm surprised spatial folding works so well given all that. Would have thought I'd have popped into a ceiling somewhere by now." Then the drone is attacked. "Wow, I'm gone for one hour and you've already managed to walk into something like this? How do you /find/ this stuff?"
Starbound Flotilla     "Debasement." The female voice speaks up again. The body does not move physically faster than Septette, no simple organic Hylotl possibly could, and yet, with her machine reflexes, she can see something: It 'skips frames', like it's jumping ahead in time. Strangely, though, by clearing her thoughts, and achieving a state of as little mental process as possible. the entity's ability to skip past their perception of time has grown more limited. It seems that a zen-like mental state will impair the ability of entities like this... Whatever it is... To do what it does.

    It parries and strikes on its own, matching her blow for blow momentarily. Unfortunately, with mere durasteel armor and organic strength, it can't match Septette's sheer physical resilience or force. A longer blade snaps, and the construct only manages to lash out with a brutal stab using a powered durasteel short blade, trying to plunge it into Septette's midsection, before her superheated blade melts through the durasteel and slams through the midsection, shattering a cluster of crystals inside. One major crystal down, and the warrior is now immobilized on the blade. There are several clusters at the back; flanking strikers need to take that out now, before the body starts trying to stab Septette even more brutally!
Souji Murasame Souji tilts his head at the sudden archaeological find. The response from Moonfin seals it and confirms something that Souji had expected. "This area may have been shaped from a powerful mental imprint. The Order may have died on Moonfin's world, but the massive mental imprint it no doubt had during its time of existence has resonated through the universe and found a replication of a home here, in the depths of a lunar rock.

Divines know what ELSE might be down here. Souji immediately falls back on self-disciplinary training, his breathing forced into regular, simple patterns, forcing down the encroaching thoughts of potential disaster to recenter himself, to stand in the eye of the storm.

Souji steps forward at this point, bringing his hand down to his own weapon. The Hylotl environment resembles many facets of Ramuh. Not entirely, but enough that some similarities can be drawn. "It seems..." Souji replies to Zwei, "That we seem to find what we expect to find. Ironic, is it not?"

There is a faint, self-mocking smile on his face as he says that.

It's when Septette disables the main crytal that Souji immediately moves: He leaps into action, flanking the Hylotl guard as he brings up his sheathed blade and strikes precisely. Erchius is a crystal, it should have shear planes that should allow him to efficiently shatter the crystals and reduce the aggregate danger level of the crystal.
Jayale     In the moments before the fighting started, Jayale was discussing with the others what to do. And then Septette decided to act.

    There was no real opportunity to think about things, no opportunity to discuss. Which is actually fairly useful for those who could act through other means. Trusting the force, going with clear feelings, not losing ones self in thoughts or how to act and just... acting. It was the way of the Jedi. It was why Jedi were able to act and block blasterfire among other things. It's also why the lightsaber she had in her hand left her hand and two more lightsaber handles shoot out of her satchel. None were ignited. Not yet.
    They didn't ignite until they got close enough where igniting them would plunge into the crystaline formations within the consturct. Jayale could /see/ them. She knew where they were, all she had to do...

    Was act.
Nozomi Houken     "Threat confirmed," Taiga says simply. Without hesitation, he vaults free of the group, coming down just in front, and begins a darting series of leaps around the outside of the cave while Septette is engaging in melee. He is, quite literally, a killing machine; combat is a programmed, primary function of his, something he can engage in at almost an automated level. On top of that, psychic attacks and scanning fall under the umbrella of his field of expertise, and his hardening against them grants him further protection on top of his simple nature.

    The net result is that he might as well be a ghost to something like this, and with Souji coming in from one angle, Taiga darts forward like an arrow from a bow at another, aiming claws-first for another of the crystal clusters on the warrior's back.
Kotone Yamakawa The idea to send drones in first proves to be a wise one as the strange humanoid thing? Shanks the dronr faster than even her agumented eye sight can track. Wait how did it do that? She has no idea what happenec till Rory Panics, then she does get some ideas b ut thankfully someone notes to control their thoughts. Panic here could cause the very thing they came for to react and react poorly to them. She hears the waring and then heads the voice once more as Sepette goes on she's not a close in fighter so she's going to hold back. Then again Septette is having a very bad time of it.

"It's very ironic Souji."

She's moving in now she's got her laser rifle out now and is trying to get aim a shot hoping to maybe melt the crystals or otherwise disrupt them once she's got a clearl shot.
Corona Arclite Well, so much for just passing around it. Probably better that they just take care of it in the end, really.

Not really one to niggle over the details of the matter.

Souji moves to one side, and Taiga foes from the other, so she takes the high road. So to speak. Corona shoots one of her grapplers into the roof of the cavern and pulls herself up to the point that she's got a clear view of the Hytol thing's backside and a clear shooting path without putting either of the meleers in danger.

The other weapon she had drawn was her Rivet Revolver, the heavy steampunk pistol firing nail-like armor piercing rounds that should help shatter one of those vulnerable crystals.
Alexis Maaka     Luckily Maaka is a disciplined, seasoned commando herself. Despite her rather laid back approach to some things, she's still pitch dark and all business when it comes to combat. She's also pretty sure being mostly cybernetic makes you immune to psychic powers as she knows them, which is why she doesn't hesitate to begin firing upon the ancient warrior fish.

    Her blaster carbine raised to the warrior's side, before she begins firing repeatedly at it when she takes the right flank, making sure to avoid accidentally tagging Septette while she's at it. "Surround it!" she calls out, blaster blazing still.

    And in the corner of her eye, she sees where she heard several very familiar looking snaphiss noises, and lightsabers they originate from. "...no freakin' way." Yeah, she's mildly jelly.
Starbound Flotilla     The warrior's body is impaled on many things: A lightsaber, Septette's blade, Souji's sheath -- which manages to punch right through the armor and the torso -- the claws of Taiga, the piercing nails of Corona... Blasts tear its back apart from Kotone and Alexis, and at one point the helmet is pierced clean through, a well-placed headshot from Alexis. It seems that the crystals are the vital organ, so to speak, though. It doesn't cease attempting to stab Septette until that last crystal is gone, at which point, the corpse slumps, dangling over the blade. It flickers in and out of visible and detectable existence.

    Notably, the damaged clusters have dropped to the ground. This crystal Erchius seems to glow much more intensely than the others, despite small size. The Warrior Erchius can now be acquired. It seems a little more fragile than the properly grown Erchius... But not that much so. It looks like some backup in the form of mining equipment will actually make this much easier to deal with. Because one can expect this isn't the only Disphotic Remnant guardian here...

    Well, for now, the tunnel onwards is open. The areas past this, on the scanned map Corona got, are all much larger than the others before. It's very likely that they'll be defended, and all sorts of senses will be detecting movement further on now. Better not let them get prepared to defend properly!
Septette Arcubielle      The durasteel shortsword stabs between Septette's ribs and slides along the surface of the glowing red sphere inside her chest: that vital component, at least, is durable enough to not suffer significant damage. The same can't be said of the more delicate components behind them: though she tries to twist out of the way of her opponent's thrust, there's little room to maneuver in a position like this.

     The Hylotl's blade shears a handful of black wires that connect her vertebrae, causing a spray of sparks. It's obviously done some damage, but there is no fear or pain evident in Septette's face or even the recesses of her mind as she wards off subsequent blows. Those are beyond her at the moment. It isn't until she finally disentangles herself from its mangled body that her eyes flicker back on and some semblance of emotion returns to her face.

     "Interesting," the robot girl chirps happily as she pockets a fragment of the brightly-growing erchius. "I'll do comparative analyses on this stuff versus the 'normal' crystals later. Could prove useful."
Jayale     When everything suddenly ceases in hostilities Jayale quickly pulls her weapons back to her and drops two of them back into the satchel at her side. Though, the third she holds in her hand a moment before reaching out with the force to pluck up one of the shards of the fallen Hylotl's crystals. Her hands work quickly with the aid of the force and she disassembles the casing of the weapon before switching out the nearly translucent crystal within for the Erchius one, reassembling the casing and dropping the crystal into her satchel.

    "Step back when I ignite my blade, this may or may not turn out well, but if it works as I am hoping, it may come out useful in dealing with other Erchius constructs." The lightsaber floats a bit away from the rest present within the area, and then attempts to ignite. What she had hoped? Was that it, too, would wind up with a blade that can absorb any thoughts, but in the process allow it to move with less detectability among these things in an effort to shatter their power crystals.
Corona Arclite Corona Arclite lowers herself back to the cavern floor once teh armored form has stopped moving, and retracts the grappler back into her glove. "Ah get the feelin' this ain't gonna be the first one we see. Better keep movin' 'long."

But not before claiming a bit of the goods for herself. Corona stoops down to pick up the tiny bit of WARRIOR ERCHIUS with one gloved hand, while producing a padded sample container from her toolbelt, and sealing it inside. Best to keep it in something that it won't get jostled around.
She also grabs a chunk of the armor of the thing itself. New metal samples are always a plus. But now is not the time to actually experiment with them.

Once that's settle, she redraws her gun and starts for the next cavern once everyone else is ready to move one.
Starbound Flotilla     Ominous purple ornate stone lanterns light up in the tunnel beyond the now-dead Disphot guardian. They flicker in time with the voice that continues to speak, in that harsh, militaristic Hylotl tone. "Profane. Every step you take past the gate is a debasement, every second you cast your eyes on what is truly sacred is an offense, because you are of unworthy races. You turn your eyes to the stars in greed and avarice, but we are the Disphotic Remnant and we tread the path of truth. We tread the path that leads us to the salvation of the homeworld and the true balance of its nature. I will teach you what you profane, and if the strength of the curse you bring us is worthy of it, I will purge it myself."
Alexis Maaka     Well, that worked out fine! Alexis approaches the fallen warrior before she puts a final shot in the back just to make sure. "Not taking any chances." She says, before she begins to break off a few pieces to snag for herself in the meantime. They could come in handy, hard to say given her experience with science stuff, but you never know.

    Noticing Septette's injuries, she flashes her a look of concern, "You okay there?" She asks, motioning to the robot's damaged components. It is kind of disconcerting how much she's willing to get herself wounded just for the sake of others sometimes.

    Then the spooky voice continues, "Blah blah blah blah, starting to care less and less about this whole 'You are profane and we are the most amazing' spiel." She says aloud with annoyance, following COrona's lead as she begins to make her way into the caverns ahead.
Starbound Flotilla     Jayale places the Erchius crystal into her saber. The result is an unusual effect, which is... Well, the Erchius responds as it always does: It acts as if it truly is what is expected of it by the mechanism. By adjusting the configuration of the lightsaber, Jayale can presumably have it behave in the way various lightsaber crystal types would, without swapping the actual crystals out. Notably, it also can conduct some force effects, though the capacity is incredibly limited. Doing things like encasing the saber in a non-lethal repulsive field is possible, however.

    It's also a distinct shade of purple, without any ability to alter that. Hm.
Rory White     Rory is glad for Kotone's cover, among others. Staying near the back and recording this incident is all she can do right now. And the jarring, time-skewed movements leave her baffled. It takes a good fifteen seconds until she even calculates time manipulation as a possible explanation for the phenomena she's witnessing... and that puts a shiver down even the non-biological synapses of an AGI.

    "It couldn't be THAT... no, it could be. If it can allow faster-than-light, that implicits means effects on space-time... what sort of ENTITY is this?! It's not a simple mineral!"

    Once the guardian is downed... Rory goes to retrieve her damaged drone. The blade speared through it, pinning it to the ceiling, but the damage is quite clean. One of her hands seemingly comes apart at the seams into fractal digits, increasingly tinier, that dig into the gouge and begin a delicate processs of fusing materials and connections back together.

    But her progress slows as she parses that strange, ghostly speech. It puts another cold shiver through her senses. This... this is definitely one the Argonauts are going to flip over.

    Lots of flipping out.

    "Why does nothing turn out to be simple? Events like this should be... a 0.05 chance style occurence, not 90 percent!"

    It's ALWAYS crazy with this crew. She's starting to get used to it. That's equally scary.
Nozomi Houken     For all his ferocity, Taiga can be surprisingly delicate. He is ginger with the shards of Erchius he picks up, and delivers them to Nozomi with surprising gentleness, not shattering any of it. Nozomi takes it and... looks at it with some trepidation, as if it's going to leap up and bite her if she doesn't keep a very careful eye on it.

    She damn near drops it when the Hylotl voice speaks.

    Taiga, meanwhile, slips back out in front, this time going ahead of the group just a bit to serve a scouting role. At the same time, however, he speaks. "Your order is long dead. You are a last, isolated hold-out. If you have pride as tools of your people, you must recognize that your time is past and your behavior only serves to impede those you serve. They have chosen a new path. It is your duty to assist that path."
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone Yamakawa makes sure the warrior thing is down and she'll take what loot she can off it or let someone with a MM shove it into storage space. She'll do what she can to still help Rory, Rory is her friend almost like family at this point and has been something who could understand something better than most other people close to her could be. She'll wont take it laying down. She keeps near Kotone her rifle ready and hears the warning from the 'guardians'

"We're here to mine fuel for our ships nothing more!"

She sighs she knows they likely can't reason witht his thing evne if it has a mind but she'll do her best to try. It seems others also are attempting words and this bolsters Kotone to keep trying.

"It is true much time has passed and the universe is a far larger place now than it was before."
Souji Murasame Souji acquires a small piece of the unusual Erchius formation. He can't expect this to go as smoothly in the future and it can be useful to compare the sample to others.

When the voice continues to speak, Souji looks up and frowns. "Those who judge others as worthy or unworthy should be prepared to be judged in turn. I look forward to meeting you and learning of the virtue and holiness you profess to hold."

He closes his eyes, and sighs for a moment, continuing to try to remain centered in the increasingly stressful situation. But this is his training.

He does, however, glance back to Rory. "Maintain control, White. This is not the place to begin envisioning worst-case scenarios."

Regardless, they have to push forward. They cannot allow this to remain, it's going to get in the way of mining out the rare resources of the area.

He doesn't need quantum spacetime warping crystal fish samurai murdering his miners. That's /bad business/.
Starbound Flotilla     The battle rages as they move on. The areas past this are natural, in the sense that they seem formed by some sort of natural process, but the huge clusters of Erchius Crystal that begin to occupy more and more space are getting more and more frequent. The group doesn't need to mine the crystals that are starting to replace the surface of most of the walls and ceiling and floor, no. They just need to break up the tremendous clusters that are the focal points of this psionic buildup.

    They reach the next room, which has amassed a trio, who will do their best to exploit some massive agility advantages they have in a brutal bladed assault with multiple blades each, while a fourth uses erchius-tipped arrows to brutally armor-piercing effect, from a range. The area has been converted into some sort of rock garden, with a nearby erchius pool, with large weapon racks and armor racks nearby. Loot? Maybe, once the group takes out the main force. But this sort of gauntlet will continue. And the Disphot Remnant are absolutely brutal. It might be noted that their psionic power and outrageous temporal effects are reduced if some of those present switch to the industrial drilling tools; Kotone, Nozomi, Rory, and others less focused on combat might have a better time if they provide backup, and if the others can keep them covered, in that battle.

    The gauntlet of chambers -- there's a dozen between the entrance and the source of that 'Disparate Subjectivity' effect that Rory pinpointed. Between them and that final chamber are several dozen Disphot Remnant guardians... The four in this room are going to be only a preface to the mass of seven that mark the next, and this is likely to only get more and more brutal. Time to decide how to progress. However the group manages to struggle through the brutally violent gauntlet of psychic supersoldiers, that voice will keep speaking in that arrogant tone...
Starbound Flotilla     Maaka gets a very, very hateful tone in the response. "Whether or not you respect the Hylotl only decides if you will die with nobility or ignominy. Whether or not you survive to hear the whole story is up to you."
Starbound Flotilla     Albert grunts to Rory, between a loot run and an attempt to fire on the guardians with a heavy rocket launcher. "It is Erchius. Probability is useless. Perception is everything." But she's totally right. None of the ops these guys go on are normal.
Corona Arclite "Gettin' respect," Corona retorts at the phantasmic voice, "requires givin' in proper due too. And yer big nonexsistant mouth ain't givin' it to us, so."

Instead of a verbal response to finish that, Corona holds one gloved hand over her head as they move on, and gives the very ethereal voice a very real outstretched middle finger.

Moving on! Corona's got one of the industrial drills, a familiarity with heavy equipment, and a knack for using the 'tools of her trade' as weapons in combat as well. She's also got the mining hammer and the Corona Breaker as well. The Erchius Crystals and their effect may be creepy and unnatural, but she's not going to be afraid of some space-forking space rocks or their manifestations.

THIS IS MY DRILL THAT SHALL PIERCE THE MOON!
Starbound Flotilla     Taiga gets a less harsh response than Alexis, but still a negative one, during the heat of the battle. "Once, our race was peaceful. It was dedicated to absolute kindness in all things. That was when the Disphotic Order was dead. When it was useless, and lazy. That is when we met the Floran, a thousand years ago. It was dead when we stood idly by, sending emissary after emissary to get devoured in savage Floran cannibalistic rites. It was dead when we granted them what they asked. It was dead when it allowed the Floran to march on our homeworld and drive the Hylotl into decay among the stars. But now, it is /alive/. Those content with peace with lesser races are to blame. And we will not pay them any heed."
Starbound Flotilla     Kotone actually gets some of the least harsh response here. "The meager desires of, what are you, a human?" The voice makes a dismissive, bitter noise. "You can take what you need of the fuel. The liquid is plentiful enough, and I care little for it. We have no need to fuel a craft. The moon itself will conduct the wrath of nature against the weeds that plague the Hylotl. The crystals are ours. with them, we will annihilate the plague of worthless tribals that debase the hylotl homeworld."
Zwei     hough Zwei has never met a couple of the people here, it is pleased to find that the majority are capable of either controlling their mental state well through training, or manually altering it via innate or artificial means. Of course that applies to Weiss as well, housing half of Zwei's bizzare, Schroedinger-esque thoughtform priority filtered through the actions of the body's AI. She doesn't need to broadcast any of Zwei's feelings she doesn't want to. After all, that's most of her job. That isn't to say that there is no signature of thought; Weiss by herself is pretty much a bonfire of psychic activity down here even on low, despite being utterly and completely devoid of any kind of spiritual or life energy. She's just able to control it.

    "You know, that actually is kind of ironic." She intones to Souji as the group makes mincemeat of the thoroughly outnumbered enemy without her. "Actually a little bit funny too, when you really think about it." She gestures towards one of the crystals dropped on the ground, the space between it and her finger flickering momentarily with invisible lightning before it abruptly pops out of existence, snatched by the native matter manipulator design integrated into her drive. "One step ahead of me already, Septette~?" she chimes, knowing full well the yggdroid was going to do it anyways.

    Oddly enough, it's actually her first time seeing the Force, or a lightsaber, despite having spent more than enough time in the multiverse, and indeed around that particular kind of world, to have reasonably happened upon a jedi at some point. She keeps the words to herself, but the intensely analytical attention is somehow palpable even through the featureless faceplate of her helmet; or maybe that's just the radiation from too much scanning. She joins in fighting of course, but only in the bare minimum capacity, taking laser precise potshots from a distance, but otherwise standing back to observe, and crunch an incomprehensible amount of data in the process of doing so.

    What surprises her more than anything is that the chatter actually gets a response from the psionic voice. "Wait wait, it's talking back?" This is a rare occasion where she repeats the obvious. "Wow, I totally assumed it was a pre-recording too!" And an even rarer instance where she's written something off as more generic than everyone else. She then needlessly clears her throat with a superfluous synthetic tinge. "Hey there!" she calls out. "This is a little awkward, so do you have a name?"
Geralt of Rivia      Geralt keeps himself with the group, silver sword in his hand. He fights defensively, not being as fast as some of the other members of the group, and focuses on putting himself between any hostiles and some of the other party members who aren't as adept at combat as he is. He's the type to cover Kotone, blasting with his telekinetic sign, and to form a whirling barrier with his silver blade.
Souji Murasame He will be the oncoming storm. He will be the Wind of Heaven. Souji's mental resolve is grossly, sorely tested through the grueling gauntlet, his suit being stained with blood as he is wounded multiple times despite attemtping to equal the speed advantage with a Haste spell of his own. By the time they have fought off the Room of Seven, Souji is breathing heavily, sewat and blood pouring from his brow as he drinks a Potion to try to keep ahead of the blood loss. "These foes are dangerous. We will need to use more directed tactics if they are to keep growing in number in thie manner, or we will be destroyed by sheer overwhelming force."

Souji does not seem pleased at this turn of events. "This is probably going to be a protracted affair to weaken the upcoming areas before pushing through. We are literally besieging the core of this area." He gestures. "We need to use focused strikes. White, pinpoint the clusters as we approach. Those who have tools suited to breaking the clusters, do so while we have our vanguard group take the initial assaults supported by the strikers. Remain focused and do not panic. Panic will feed the enemy."
Nozomi Houken     It probably takes some prompting to get Nozomi to help. But once she has the thought, and once she knows people are covering her, she will do just that, surprisingly enough. True to Taiga's word, her hands are surprisingly steady, and her eyes are fairly keen; building model kits as a hobby tends to sharpen both traits in a person, and she's very good at building model kits. So she tends to make fairly quick work of whatever cluster she's taking apart, whenever she's not looking over her shoulder in worry.

    Taiga, meanwhile, makes it very clear that his primary role is in protecting Nozomi. He is impressively quick and agile himself, but never ventures far from his user unless doing so will not unduly put her at risk, Nevertheless, he provides support both long-range and close-in where possible, though by the time they pause, his plating has taken some damage here and there. "Then you have failed in your intended purpose," he replies to the voice simply. "Attempting to fulfill it now, when it is too late to change and the majority of your race has already chosen their path, only cements your failure. If you would deem most of your own people unworthy and take actions which directly interfere in their current chosen way of survival, then you are so fundamentally flawed in perception and operational logic that, whether you are an order of living Hylotl or an artificial intelligence, you yourself have become the most unworthy and detrimental existence to your people possible. As one tool to another, I can no longer offer you any degree of respect."
Septette Arcubielle These crystalline warriors are almost like the Deep Ones that Septette is so familiar with: while the latter fed upon negative emotions, the former seem to reflect them back, mirroring one's expectations. The same skills that served her in the Abyssal War come to her aid again now. Her eerie demeanor doesn't reflect self-control, but rather self-manipulation: Septette is turning the dials on her own emotions, trying to home in on the mix of perceptions and expectations that will leave her opponents most vulnerable.

     In one instant, her affect is like that of a berserker; in the next, her eyes glint with irrepressible glee at the carnage she inflicts. Mere moments later, she shows- and feels- nothing but icy contempt for these arrogant mockeries of life as she endeavors to crush them, all the while ever-so-carefully measuring the strength of their attacks and the force required to tear apart their defenses. She's just as insatiably analytical as Zwei in that regard, albeit with a much more hands-on approach to sating her curiosity.

     "Naturally, Weiss," she replies in a wildly-fluctuating and almost unrecognizable voice. "Fashionably late as usual. But how do you ever expect to gain experience if you skimp on the encounters? There's only so much you can learn from the sidelines!"
Starbound Flotilla     The tone the Hylotl woman uses to Souji is beyond contempt, and he can see it conducted through the zombie-like crystal-sustained form of the Disphot he faces down, in their posture. "I am Hylotl. We are perfection itself. You will learn, if you are capable of knowing. But you will not judge." This woman is kind of awful. "We are the ones who spent hundreds of thousands of years, deep in the oceans, learning everything there is to know about understanding and saving the world around us. I do not have to prepare for anything. I am immaculate."
Alexis Maaka     All Alexis can say as Taiga lays out the smack on this voice is a muttered, "Damn, man." under her breath. She really doesn't care to debate with a dead spirit herself, and she notes the appearance of further guardians. "Oh crap, knew it couldn't be this easy." She mutters, before she begins to open fire on one of the crystal guardians with rapid fire blaster shots.

    At the same time, she makes her way closer to the ancient warriors, taking the fight to them as she aggressively begins to fire towards the head area of one guardian. "Don't make me beg, fuckin' die already!"
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone Yamakawa is making sure to be on her goard given what' shappned so fgar she notices the armor and such but she might move to grab some later. She gets the idea things are just gtting nuts. She's not ready to deal with temporal warfare. She's getting the idea though the industial drilling tools might be something she can put to use rather than crashing into a loggerhead with the rements of this sect directly.

She's thankful for Geralt already for the help as she goes to put the drill to get to drilling along side Nazomi she's got the right idea and she's happy to have the cover she's got from Geralt and everyone else, so soon Nazomi would find Kotone working with her putting that drill to use.
Jayale     "This is certainly not what I came down here expecting. Hylotl, you say your name is." Jayale speaks softly, attempting to use the trained 'Jedi get along with everyone' kind of thing as she stepped forward. "My name is Jayale." And she was calm, as compared to some of the others, peaceful. There was no desire for combat within her, no desire to fight, nor any sense of superiority or inferiority. She was simply another being at this point as far as she was concerned. "You say your race was once peaceful, was dead, and only now is awake through violence. Through living. That is an interesting concept, and you would know best about your own kind. So, I would ask you this. If we are inferior to you, is it not true that you have nothing to fear of us being here? There is no need to fight with us, no need to force us inferior beings to flee. Perhaps we can both get what we want and no further problems have to come of this?" She has since removed the crystal shard she picked up and replaced her original saber configuration, though she uses the opportunity to float the crystal piece forward and back down onto the ground.

    Might as well try peaceful.
Starbound Flotilla     Corona gets a scoff. "Once, you would have had all the respect anyone could seek. When we were foolish. When we believed that all the races we encountered /deserved/ salvation, respect, empathy. The Floran taught us that was wrong. When we turned to the stars, we did so with absolute kindness. We provided everything we had. We gave everything we were. We taught everything we knew." And her voice becomes, for just a moment, hateful beyond description. "That is why the homeworld's oceans run red."
Rory White     Rory hunkers in the middle of the group, staying low. Crouching in low gravity is easy and doesn't affect her perceptions much, for a brigade of sensors keep her abreast of her surroundings besides two binocular optics. Crouching only makes sense. She becomes less of a target and easier to cover.

    "Moonfin, your people frighten me a little now, if this is their mindset! Though I cannot blame such a reaction, it's still terrifying!" She calls out... in one thought process. Others are still analyzing the situation. Like double-checking their coordinates and progress through the chambers.

    "I am an emissary from other stars, Hylotl warriors, and we do not behave as the Florans do. Retaliation is one thing, but now you are the unreasonable aggressors. We came in peace!"
Starbound Flotilla     Zwei gets a response that comes from a voice toned with profound resolve. "I am no recording. For a thousand years I have sustained myself on the Erchius meditation. When my homeworld was slaughtered for the foolishness of daring to believe another race worthy, I came here. The last true Disphot, a Remnant of the shattered Order. I have filled this moon with my hatred for a thousand years. If you come to take the mechanism of my revenge, you will die with my name as the last thing in your thoughts."

    "I am Isamu, the Disphot Remnant."
Starbound Flotilla     Corona, Nozomi, and Kotone are all handling drilling. The overwhelming force of the Disphot guardians is outrageously dangerous, but only until the point that they carefully, or in some cases forcefully, crack open the Erchius clusters therein. It takes some time, and some defense. With Geralt keeping Kotone safe, Nozomi kept safe by Taiga, and Corona, well, Corona can handle herself, they can survive through the defense of this siege, despite archery, heavy swordsmanship, and similar combat. None of them have reached that state of mental clarity, though, meaning that the foes who strike at them are extremely difficult to catch up with...!!!

    But once those clusters are broken, the Disphots in the area will be vastly more weak. Maaka, Septette, Jayale, and Souji -- and occasionally even Zwei, though most of their victory here is getting to analyze the effects of thousands of years of psionic buildup -- will have a much less difficult time. Septette, Jayale, and Souji especially. By using their mental self-adjustment, their Jedi training, and their samurai-like focus respectively, they can achieve the sort of mental clarity that is required in order to slow down the Erchius and its reaction to perception. These Disphots adhere to strict codes in their behavior, as if they were programmed to... Or maybe as if that is the rules of how they are meant to conduct themselves. Those who use swords find themselves in heated one-on-one duels more often than not, as the others back off to give space to those exchanges and to focus on Maaka and Zwei, or sometimes Septette if they don't play by those rules.

    It's an exhausting course, but the gang can pull through. Despite being quite honorable, in a way, never using trick attacks or dirty fighting, the foes are almost suicidal in their intent to kill. They will be quite willing to die if it means leaving a sword lodged in their foes. They also drop more Warrior Erchius, densely-charged shards that are especially potent.

    The central chamber is a shrine of some sort. Senses can now tell that the odd effect that Rory was experiencing is centered on the biggest cluster of Erchius. They just need to bust that in the next chamber to finish this job. There'll need to be cleanup, but if they disrupt its contiguity, the danger here will be mostly dealt with...
Starbound Flotilla     This next chamber is designed as a shrine. The others had various similarly eastern setups, often quite religious. Some purposes were clear, some weren't. But the next area? Unashamedly obvious. This is meant to be some sort of recreation of sacred ground, a sort of shrine to Isamu's own hatred. Grand sweeping steps lead up to an area clearly meant for the Hylotl's own meditation, and presumably the final showdown. More stone lanterns light, blazing ominously. The Disphot's putting on a show. They lead up the carved stairs -- the only unnatural structure here -- up to the main floor higher above.

    As the group ascends, the Disphot has more responses to the statements made to her, some by Taiga. "I still have the power. I need only a few hundred more years, I am sure. Only a while longer, before the the Floran can be purged like they deserve. And outside? They are not surviving. They die a slow and noble death. They may choose that, despairing, knowing no solution to this plague. But I know the solution. And I will use it."

    Moonfin looks away from Rory, uncertainly. "I believe that the Hylotl are superior in many ways, but I do not... Think so unkindly of other races." He says.
    This provokes an angry response. "He associates with profane races. A traitor to the Hylotl, not fit to call himself Moonfin. And you, you've come to steal what I intend to use to purge the weeds that infest my home. You think that the empathy I have doesn't scream out to give you what you ask for? But I've learned. The instinct of pure kindness in our hearts is a path to death. You will have nothing from these caves."
Corona Arclite Corona had no problem with working under pressure, be it intense labor or the middle of a siege. Or both in this case, as lugging around the heavy duty drill more or less qualified for. The foxgirl has no problem with even turning the drill on an attacker if she must to drive them away. But her focus remains primarily on smashing the crystals to weaken their effect on their enemies so her allies can do the heavy lifting of putting them permanently out of commision.

In the end she saunters into the final chamber with the others, battered and bruised by still up and kicking. She shuts off the drill mechanism, giving it a chance to cool off while the chance is there.

Because that last big cluster is gonna take a whole lot of bustin'.

"Ah'm startin' to wonder if these fishmen weirdos -- no 'ffense Moonfin -- didn't stary -worshipin'- these crystals." Why else build a shrine around em? Simple logic as far as she cares.

She's just ignoring the ominpotent voice at this point. As far as she's concerned it hasn't said an important thing worth listening to anyways.
Jayale     It was really a pity it came down to this. There was no need in Jayales mind to fight these things, to be forced to fight. However, the being, this Hylotl, or Isamu or whatever name it was given. "Then I will respect your wishes." However, her preferred methods of dealing with combat were simply to not deal with it, to avoid it. To remove the reason for such things to happen. Yet, here they were, in a position where not only could she not really use the Force for fear of it reacting badly with the Erchius crystals, but being pressured by other beings with weapons.

    Beings who were suicidally aggressive.

    Despite it all the older Jedi remained clear-headed and calm, though as she moved her lightsabers appeared again, two floating in front of her with one remaining in her right hand. If any knew how Jedi tended to fight, they might be a bit surprised at how Jayale did. Her styles, Soresu and Makashi, were both reactive, not remotely proactive. Yet her own /intentions/ with fights were quite different. She didn't have the experience, the training to completely fall back on these for her fighting.

    Any watching her would see her blades were rarely ignited until the last moment, reacting to things that were coming, the motions of the blades that were floating in front of her moving almost before the attacks were going to happen. On, off, blades passing back and forth to catch the swings her way and redirecting them away from herself so as they complete they fall harmlessly away from her. And in the opportunities that presented itself, a weapon flickering off and back on again at the right angle would pierce through, and pierce a crystal.

    For Jayale it was a slow process, she was certainly not the youngest of Jedi and her age showed easily that as the further she got along, the more she actually looked tired. In fact, by the point the last fell and they began to move towards the central shrine, even as fluid and efficient as her movements were - she was looking rather winded, pushed to the point where she might not be able to endlessly defend herself any further if things continued to pressure with the intensity they were.

    "Even as one such as myself, I can agree that pointless kindness can lead to deaths. I work as a trader in many disparate places, and I can certainly say that even those small acts of kindness can lead to others being targets. But that does not mean striking first, or being aggressive, is the only way to live. Tell me - were you happier when you were kind, or are you happier now, in your desire to get revenge, or destroy those above? You may have been in more danger, but you were probably quite more content. Let go, Hylotl. For yourself. There is no need to carry this on."
Souji Murasame Souji is an adept of the Path of Sword Guy. This is a thing that is a constant throughout the Multiverse. Unfortunately for the Disphot guardians, Souji is also /very good/ at one on one duels. The fact that they can manipulate the Guardians in this manner to funnel the forces onto their more durable targets is ruthlessly exploited, Souji intentionally working to maintain and draw out fights in some cases to keep things contained. Just because Souji is remaining focused doesn't mean he won't take advantage of weakness. Far from it, really.

Despite this, Souji continues to take additional incidental damage, and privately wishes he had a healer on hand. His suit is fairly wrecked at this point, showing many signs of having been cut and torn in various ways, even if the flesh underneath shows every sign of recuperating from extensive Potion use.

He's going to need to take a rest after this one.

Finally, though, they are on the verge of the central shrine, the core of this madness and the thing standing between them and a massive deposit of dangerous psionically-active crystal ore. "If you offer death, that is all you receive. That is the nature of things." Souji replies. "Moonfin has been a stalwart and dependable companion, a credit to your species both in warfare and dignity. I will not have you malign his name our of your delusions of perfection and ageless hatred. Perfection does not exist in this or any universe."

And with a sigh, he releases his breath once more. "And if it will require banishing you to the darkness in order to allow you to understand that, so be it."
Zwei     "Mmm, so that's the title of the individual as well as the organization, or perhaps just the mantle itself." There are plenty of ways that Weiss could muse in silence, or converse privately over the radio, but yet she chooses to speak out loud, fully well knowing that Isamu can hear her. "Well, to play devil's advocate, it's easy to criticize a culture from the outside, and easier to pick apart history with perfect hindsight." For a moment it sounds like she's chiding the Hyotl, until it becomes clear that she's actually talking to everyone else.

    "It's just as easy to get offended over it, and going back and forth about respect and what people deserve is a cheap substitute for exchange of any kind of ideals. People passing casual judgement on things they've never experienced while you were an intimate part of them is always infuriating, and far too frequently slips into explaining ignorance to the expert. I don't think getting huffy about choices of words and religious and historical context is going to get anyone anywhere". She then shrugs, that gesture at least visible through the armour. "Biteblade is an exception. I'm pretty sure most responsible galactic caretakers would have bombed the Florans out of existence the moment they got off their home planet. While I don't approve of stewing in revenge fantasies for hundreds of years, I can't exactly fault the racial hatred behind it. She's not wrong about the cause and effect here." A beat. "And I'm gonna give credit, the erchius robots are really impressive!"

    Finally she speaks up properly again, audibly directing her voice outwards instead of keeping it at a conveniently overheard indoor tone. "You really need a whole moon full of crystals for all of this? I know it's hard to toss old projects you've sunk a lot of time into, but you've been gone for a very, very long time. You might be surprised what else is out there! See, we really want these erchius crystals, but I don't think any of us have anything serious against you personally. If you can't part with any of them for the next few centuries, that's going to be a problem, but not one that can't be solved by just coming out and trying something new."
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone Yamakawa finally is able to stop drilling once the fight ends she'll put the drill over her back get her rifle ready and move on keeping with the group but now they find the grand puba of the Disphot and she looks about to see if she can see them for a moment. She gets the idea from Moonfin he does think highly of his people but he does not think of them as mindless animals at least judging him on his behaviour she's also sticking near Rory again.

"We're profane? Moonfin has proven to be an honorable man in word and action in all my time knowing hm. I may not agree with everything he does but he practices what he says and that's more than a lot of people in this universe. You could bring much to your people if you abaoned this crussade is it not better to save your people than march down the path of revenge like this?"

She looks over to Jayale whose been rapidly proving her self in this whole run ad she's pretty well spoken too. Then comes Zwei she feels tiny again but hey she's got to say what she's got to say.
Alexis Maaka     "You're ridiculous." Alexis just says, before she begins to engage the Disphot with a blaster in one hand, a high-frequency blade in the other. She uses the blade for parrying and nicking away when she finds openings, her blaster firing away at weakened points until the warrior falls. She's nothing if not ferocious in combat, using speed and strength alongside sheer combat experience in blocking and evading blows, replying with attacks of her own.

    She finds herself suffering more than a few slashes here and there, the swords leaving deep gashes in both armor and synthetic flesh, with blood trickling out. "Not good." Alexis mutters, before she plunges her chukutou-esque blade into the crystal warrior's neck, and puts the muzzle of her blaster carbine to its head, pulling the trigger one last time.

    Assuming that's enough to finish it off, she holsters both weapons, before applying sealants to close up her wounds and also the nanowhatsit that keeps her from suffering horrific death due to an open wound in a vaccuum.

    Grabbing some more of the Erchius, she carries onwards, too exhausted to even give a damn what Isamu is saying at this point, giving the voice a rude gesture before she slumps against a cavern wall.

    Which means she's giving the bird to what looks like nobody at all...which looks a bit silly.
Rory White     Rory timidly goes along with the group. Being mostly unarmed and armored, she is trying to avoid drawing aggro, which means lots of using others as cover. However... words, those are a weapon she can use.

    Others are definitely using them better.

    "Isamu of the Hylotl, this is not a constructive answer that will help your people. I could understand if your hatred was focused solely on the Florans, but if you truly believe the things you have said... your vengeance has no place in this world or any other. It will not aid the Hylotl. None can benefit from it. In nearly a thousand years, all the civilizations have declined to near collapse and fragmented. In a thousand years the known universe has expanded far beyond anything on your charts. Look at the world and you will see a thousand ways to restore the Hylotl. For if your way is violene alone, it will be answered in kind.... the people you want to protect will be dragged into a conflict they had no say in and die. Is this what you want?"
Septette Arcubielle      Self-diagnostic systems too badly damaged to accurately assess damage taken, Septette notes dispassionately. Her movements remain as swift and precise as at the start, but she looks like hell: one eye's display has died, leaving a black and empty-looking socket in its place, and the excess heat from her sustained enchantment abuse makes the air around her shimmer in convection-induced mirages. Damage to the central 'spinal cord' has left half of her face frozen in an impassive mask, as if she had suffered a stroke; the other is twisted in in a manic rictus that bares triangular metal teeth.

     Since the first few rooms, she's kept up a steady pace of engaging several of the constructs at once, as if flaunting her rejection of their 'honor'. It may have been effective at keeping pressure off of her allies, but it's definitely left the yggdroid worse for wear. Sseptette scarcely seems to notice her own state as she flicks one of her blades to dislodge an impaled opponent. Its body clatters against the wall as she steps into the inner chamber.

     Her ominous footfalls say more than her words could, and so the little war machine remains silent as she trudges forwards. Looking ragged and worn is nothing new to Sept, but for the first time since Unification, something inside her mind seems to be damaged as well.
Starbound Flotilla     The final ascent is revealed. The shrine is displayed in all its ornate glory. Unlike the aged Torri, this is pristine. Every inch of it is an intricate, artistic display, except for the specific, well-calculated inches where such things would be tasteless. Everything that could be carved is carved with an expert artist's hand. Everything that can display ceremonial writing does so. Isamu's even cultivated a garden and orchard up here, and the tree that grows here, some alien species or another, drops crimson petals to mark the path.

    The Disphot Remnant atop the shrine sits in the center, where an elaborate envronment seems dedicated entirely to her. It holds an aggressive posture. It is a shrine to hatred, made as noble as possible. Isamu's form can be seen here, meditating in front of a massive chunk of Erchius. Her armor is thick and strong, resilient Impervium that's nearly impossible to pierce and just as impossible to acquire. The katana that lies across her lap is just as rare, clearly a weapon that can cleave most blades apart, despite having been crafted over two millennia ago.

    The crystal pulses. Isamu's body doesn't move as her voice rings out from the Erchius. "No. My happiness will come when every weed on my homeworld drowns. I will receive no death; I am Hylotl perfection. And I will use every crystal. An army unlike any known will emerge, transcending time and space to achieve utter victory. It will lack casualty and causality. It will kill every last Floran on the Hylotl homeworld, and then, I will purge every last one from the galaxy, to prevent this from ever befalling my race. And you intend to stop me?"

    "Fine then. You have heard my story. Now I will end yours. Your deaths will close this chapter of prologue." She seems like she's gearing up for battle... Her voice fills with heroic resolve! And this is the point at which it's likely that the group will notice a distinct lack of ERchius crystals in Isamu's body itself. Others may detect an actual lack of a mind in it. Some will detect a lack of body heat and breathing. Everyone can detect a lack of movement.

    The Disphot Remnant doesn't speak more. There's a very awkward silence.
Corona Arclite Corona Arclite looks at the cluster. Looks at the drill. Looks at the cluster again.

And puts the drill away.

"No more playin' games. Med'tashun time is over." Corona draws the Breaker from her back, extending it to full length and clenching the activator switch in the handle as she grips it with both hands. There's a crackle around the head of the weapon as the pulsarium core that energizes it powers up. The drill is nice, but this is The Big Thing and Corona is getting out her tool designed for breaking things that sometimes aren't meant to be breakable.

"Guess what?" With the energized sledgehammer she rushes towards the Erchius to start hammering away at it. "Perfecshun just means it ain't been SMASHED yet! YEEHAH!"
Starbound Flotilla     "..."

    There's a very long pause. Corona hammers the giant Erchius chunk and it cracks, with part of it tipping right over, falling onto the ground. It continues to pulse with light as it speaks.

    "...I have... Decided, as your group contains only one Floran, to spare you my righteous fury, and instead negotiate. Inferior as you may be, I am still confident that I can do what is necessary to purge the weeds even if you take some share of the crystals." The woman's voice is strained, still bitter and hateful, but clearly fearful, albeit maybe only slightly.
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone Yamakawa give s quick scan of Isamu's body and notices two imporant things, one there is no heat higher than the local tempature and two they are not breathing and the garden. Wait what the garden that is here? How is this even working there's no real sunlight, no air, no water and yet things are growing here. There's a mix of pitty and horror here as she sees Isamu and their state she waits for the fight to start but then nothing happens, there's not crystals in Isamu's body she can't control the corpse like the other ones she's stepping back she'll let others make this call she can hear she's willing to talk now but this is not her call given the nature of this world is not her own she doesn't have the right to chose their fate. There goes Corona for you she's very direct in her problem solving.
Nozomi Houken     For a good several seconds, Taiga simply stares.

    Then he ambles casually out of the group, clackety-clack - and there's more furrows in the ground, disrupting the perfect harmony of the shrine - until he is right up in front of Isamu. Where he simply sits down, tail lazily swaying back and forth.

    "Hello. I am the Technology-Integrated Gensou Engine Rampart. You may call me TIGER. I am an anti-supernatural weapon. Aside from the source of your existence, I feel it prudent to note that there is a strong probability I can also attack the form standing before me now. If you engage in any hostilities whatsoever that will either directly or indirectly harm my master, whether in the immediate future or further on, I will eat you."

    And then he curls up right there, on the ground in front of Isamu.

    Nozomi just sort of... stands there. Her own robotcat has successfully bewildered her.
Alexis Maaka     Maaka just kinda watches Corona knock the thing silly a bit, before she just shakes her head and begins picking up cracks of Erchius, and then her eyes settle upon that sword laid in front of Isamu. "Well, hello there..."

    She's hardly a samurai, but she definitely appreciates a good blade when she sees it, and the cyborg plucks up the Hylotl katana. ALexis takes her time inspecting the craftsmanship, testing the edge a bit before she sheaths it again and tucks it on her harness. It'll make a good trophy, and probably come in handy at a later date if the time comes. "If it makes you feel any better, I'll do my best to take care of this beaut." She whispers to the statue, content with how this has gone.

    She may or may not REALLY want to test this baby out soon.
Corona Arclite Corona Arclite winds back for another swing as the crystal falls, but the entity inside of it starts to beg and surrender. The Breaker comes around....

And stops just microns from the crystal's surface. "That might be the smartest thing ya said all day."

Well, sounds like others want to either study the thing, or lock it away somewhere or... well, for a moment she stares at Taiga almost as much as Nozomi does, before shaking it off. Finally she lifts the Breaker to rest it on her shoulder. "Yer just lucky I'm more interested in what may be stashed in that armoury."

After which she turns and heads to see what sort of loot she can find in the goods.
Septette Arcubielle      With that, Septette straightens up and folds in her blades, her joints making unpleasant crunching sounds as she moves. Her face relaxes from its unseemly grimace. It's hard for Sept not to feel pained about this. It's not unreasonable for the others to feel no sympathy at all for Isamu, but at the same time... there are too many parallels to the path that her own life almost took for Sept to feel wholly comfortable with denying the Hylotl any chance at redemption.

     "I can take you with me," she says after a long moment of consideration as she lays one clawed hand on the glowing crystal. "You will have no physical body; no means of lashing out at anyone. But you may have some small chance at changing your mind. Perhaps, after some decades, if you dedicate yourself to peace again, you may have earned a happier existence."

     "Or I can leave, and you can die here," she concludes simply. "Please choose carefully, Isamu."
Starbound Flotilla     You can hear Isamu grinding her nonexistant teeth. Attempting to reconcile a millennia of psychologically isolated echo-chamnber racism with an immediate threat to her life is tough! "You dare to--" She starts, before catching herself in a frustrated way. The crystal actually rattles just slightly. One can actually feel her grappling with her psychological strain. "That. Sounds. Acceptable." She manages to say. Saying more words seems like it's something that'll cause her some real, intense distress.

    "Hey bones, I can set her up as the SAIL unit for your ship if you want." George says, peering over Septette's shoulder. "Pretty sure she'd be totally harmless and, hear me out here: It'd be /really hilarious/."
Souji Murasame Souji observes the absurd tactical error of Isamu, and just shakes his head. "Perfection, as I had said, cannot exist in this universe." Souji simply restates. "Perhaps it would be more merciful if you were simply allowed to die with your blade in your hand with honor, as you fought for your ideal that sustained you through all these years."

He shrugs, then. "But it seems that others have different definitions of mercy." He's going to let them have what they want for now.

Zwei brings up an excellent point. They will be wanting to acquire that technology regardless. He can accept this.

The long game is the most important game.
Septette Arcubielle      "I appreciate your offer greatly, Mr. Squishy," Septette replies with barely-suppressed mirth as she picks up the central glowing shard. "We shall have to see how the upgrades to my ship go, but that may well be a solution amenable to everyone." Then, to Isamu as she turns to leave: "I'm delighted to hear your decision. Hopefully we can both overcome our first impressions of one another and work together constructively, hmm? Besides, it may not be so bad... the universe has changed quite a bit since you've seen it last. There are so many new vistas worth exploring..."
Zwei     Yes, Zwei does have a very good point. One that's taken a lot of backseat wrangling over private radio, but a point nonetheless. Personally, it really doesn't care for whatever happens to the Florals responsible for the occupation of the Hyotl homeworld. The Adjudication Index doesn't permit it to value their lives especially highly for their previously demonstrated behaviour. What's more relevant is the fact that they've isolated Isamu's central consciousness, and by removing it from the moon, they negate a great deal of the danger she poses, while still retaining access to someone who is apparently extremely skilled in high level erchius based construction, and capable of mass producing multi-dimensional timespace warping combat robots. It should probably figure that Weiss appearing for a delve like this instead of Asche was all the preface anyone should realistically need to know that Zwei had come here with intentions other than a simple breach and clear.

    "Relax Isamu~ It's like I told you. Thinks have changed a lot. Chances are getting out of here will help you out a lot more than stewing over these crystals for another few centuries. Besides, it can't hurt to actually see what your race has been up to in the meantime, can it? Or at the very, very least, to survey where the Florans are located." Fair's fair. The idea of Isamu being Septette's SAIL is actually completely and totally hilarious.
Starbound Flotilla     "Yes, hello, you beast." The crystal flickers as it replies to Taiga. "I will not call you TIGER, and you will have no ability to devour me, I will call--" She starts, getting into one of those moments. Then she seems to remember her situation. "Yyyyyyes. Hello. Hi, TIGER. Your... Dry master. Will not be harmed." She is just, just BARELY managing to eek out these responses without relapsing into hateful ranting. "I can harm them. My abilities as Disphot grant me perfect mastery of all forms of violence. But. They. Won't. Be. Harmed. Yes." Wow it is a TITANIC struggle in there, apparently. She is now being hoisted by Septette.
Nozomi Houken     The subtle twitch of Taiga's tail seems to suggest some degree of satisfaction. And he is quite content just to lay there. Smugly.
Starbound Flotilla     Maaka gets the sword. It is two thousands years old, made of impervium. Now, with steel, you can fold that thing a thousand times, and damn! You get a good blade. The numerical description of the ancient Impervium compound's folding actually defies most systems of math, and is functionally indescribable. It looks pretty plain though. Black, with green at the pommel, crossguard, and in odd lines at the flat of the blade. It's not just old, it's technological, with power systems all through it to enhance it in many ways. This one's a big example, but it's likely there's a few blades like this somewhere around here too, if others need them, in varying types! Shorter blades, scythes, spears, and similar are available for looting.
Corona Arclite Corona Arclite makes sure to grab one of the.. uh.. Oh look, a scythe. It's kind of like a hammer, but with a blade.. okay, not entirely.. but. She might not use it much as an actual weapon, but she's all for studying other weapons so she can refine and improve the capability of her own. The Corona Breaker does have a big hook on the back of it, after all. If nothing else maybe she can glean something from the material its made of. That's always good in her profession.

Weird echuris crystals, other scattered loot... Yep, been a good day for the most part. Just gonna need a little time for the bruises to heal, is all.
Starbound Flotilla     Isamu goes to Septette, but that doesn't mean Souji won't be getting his data. Not only does he have a great deal of Warrior Erchius to study, it's not as though Septette's been unfriendly to the idea of letting the Flotilla do research on what she has. George lets Septette hoist the crystal, and as he does, he gives a sly, subtle wink to Souji, a sign of assurance.
Souji Murasame Souji is not particularly worried about it. He nods to George in return. This is a treasure trove of Erchius, and once again, the Starbounders may be responsible for a revolution in Galiandan magitechnology.

The possibilities are endless for those who are clever. The members of the Zaibatsu keep proving that over and over. And soon, Galianda will recognize that as well...
Starbound Flotilla     "Relax? How /dare/ you! I swore not to rest until every one of those weeds--" The Disphot Remnant says, beginning another rant before she seems to regard the others here in a frustrated way -- how she does this while being an unmoving crysal is impossible to describe -- then turns her attention back to Zwei. "...Yes. That. Definitely sounds like a thing. That will happen. Surveying. Especially surveying is what will happen."