The journey across the long, thin support bridge was a bit harrowing for Tasha, given her concerns, but the bug-buses moved across without a single misstep, even at full speed. Once parked in the plaza, the two Eeee went about waking up the passengers that were in suspension. While this goes on, Gabriel approaches Tasha and holds up a sealed package. It has the Dark Horse logo stamped onto it. "Something from the last supply drop," the big Karnor notes.
Tasha had planned to be there when Katherine woke up, preferably with a romantic line at hand and holding her, but her duty has kept here where she is. Knowing what the city is suspended over has raised the danger level in her mind, too, and while she thinks she's making the right choice in focusing on the city she can't help but regret a little the missed chance and failure as a girlfriend.
Presently she's studying the city, trying to make some sense of things as Gabriel approches with the mystery box. "It's weird to have a logo," the young woman notes, still ill at ease with her own success to matter how much she enjoys it. "It's probably something nice, to to show they miss us." Or something lewd from Kaa, to show he misses us. "She takes the package and begins opening it, hoping the soul-eating abyss and creepy city can wait a moment.
Inside the box is.. the cornea-display sprayer and a plastic stick similar to a money chip. There's also a folded piece of paper.
Tasha eyes the two items skeptically, then shrugs and truns to Gabriel. "I think it's private." She shifts the contents to one hand, awkwardly unfolding the paper and wishing her left hand had more fingers.
The note is handwritten - which Yue once explained to her is a good way to fool cyber-scanning gear. It reads, "Software update for comms. Touch near-field tool to earpiece. Reapply display spray. GalSix auto-translate functions added. Jonas & Moka."
It's not lewd and it doesn't sya they're missed, yet it is very useful and more so professional. Tasha finds herself wondering if she ought to be disappointed, but opts instead to be proud of her people for doing their job -- they can't always be goofy and ignore her authority after all. She sidles up to Gabriel and shows him the message, then hands him the spray as she leans in, eyes wide, reaching to touch the tool to her earpiece. "At least we won't have to keep asking Yue, I think it goes to her head."
Gabriel is very careful with the sprayer, but at least it's automated enough to self-target and control the amount of nano-phosphors and quantum dots. "I'll dowse everyone else," Gabriel offers, and holds his hand out for the programming tool. "You can fill in the recently awakened on what's happened so far."
"Hokay," Tasha breathes, straightening and then blinking a few times to make sure the spray has set. She may never get used to having things in or near her eyes. "Lets head back to the bugs. I want to makre sure everyone knows not to try climbing down the cliff or replling in to the pit or something."
People are stretching and wiping off the stasis goo that still clings in places. Liza has already cleaned up at least, and meets with Tasha on the way to Katherine. "How long did it take to get here?" she asks, eying Tasha's fur and hair to see how much grooming it will require.
It will certainly take some grooming, quite possibly a lot by the new standards of Tasha. It's as if she regresses when left alone long enough, shifting down an invisible, inevitable hill towards Titaniandom at the bottom. "Ummmm," hesitates the hybrid woman, who tries very hard to find an excuse to extricate herself and 'alien horrors' and 'the fearsome unknown' not seeming good enough, " ... a while. A few weeks." She hopes emphasis will make it sound longer; she tracks down Katherine in the hopes she can still sneak in at the end.
Katie's hair is a bit of a gooey mess, but the Karnor woman is too busy looking at the alien city around them to really notice. At least her jumpsuit is self-cleaning (but then, all of their clothes are). Aaron is staring off back towards the cliff and bridge.
"Hiiii Kaaaaatiiiie," goes Tasha, in the same tone she used to greet Katie Kaboom during her appearance at the Pit of Himaar and elsewhere. It's squeely, high, and a bit sycophantic, which Tasha thinks is just perfect. At the same time she subtly waves Lizza to tend to the starlet's hair, knowing her own attempt -- while heartfelt -- might just end up as an unwitting attempt to replicate teh Stonecutter's tentacle-hair.
"That was a weird ride," Katie notes as she smiles at Tasha. "I'd hug you but I might be sticky. I guess everything has gone as intended?"
"I don't mind!" Tasha's tail wags ferociously, but then she feels like rabbit eyes might be giving her the gentle death stare. She does not check. "Oh, um, more or less. The planet kind of helped? We think this route is a pilgrimage, and the planet reshaped itself to help us along. There might be symbolisim or deeper meaning we're missing behind it all, but no one knows what it might be. What we do know is this is where we wanted to go, and the giant hole below us is some sort of space-time, gravity smoothing barrier that no one should enter. At least it doesn't seem to be present in the city, that field." She does not like that field. The memory still haunts her.
"Well, we want to look into the city, not the hole," Katie notes, and finally sits down so Liza can comb goo out of her hair. "So now.. we just need to find the temple of Fessus and look for a tomb?"
Tasha sits down beside Katie, because in her mind there's no down side to being closer to Katie while the opposite is rarely true. "The scientists and scholars will probably wnat to examine multiple locations besides the temple, but for us it's mostly the temple. I'm a little worried those pits are containment fields, but I can't really know, all I know is that they're smoothing space for some reason. Hopefully Fessus has more to say, assuming I'm not about to have a meeting with a millions-year old dead man." She does not add that sometimes the dead can still be very talkative -- and also sarcastic.
"Well, I doubt he's still alive," Katie notes. "There might be some sort of automated system though, like whatever keeps the equatorial and orbital city intact. Nothing should have lasted this long on its own."
"Welllllll ... " Tasha knows sometimes things last a long time. Occassionally, they last a really long time, and rarely, that time is just mind-boggling longer. She also knows some things don't pay much attention to time as she -- or presumably others in her universe -- know it, seeing it as optional or much like a city they might go visit, exist in, then leave when it suits them. She does not know which catagory Fessus exists in, yet. "I'm sure that's probably correct. I will be a little disappointed if the great wizard is just a challenge-and-reply robot, though."
"So you do want to meet him then," Katie accuses with a grin. "What do you plan on asking about then?"
"Well of course I do," Tasha insists, spreading her hands and leaning back, indicatively. "I know I'm here to carry out 'the patron's' request-" 'the patron' being said in a deeper and more ominous tone, "-but I'd like to see what this 'wizard' is all about and how and why he has this Samael tagging around with him. Maybe he'll know more about 'the patron', who kind of scares me but I was angry when I met him and I was more angry than scared I guess, but, um, well I try not to think about that part. Um. Oh, I'm wondering about his 'be a god' Q&A sessions, why he does it, where it leads, what kind of god he leads people to be, and maybe what the Stonecutters were like and where they went." Though on a level the young woman rather wouldn't know, though only if her guess is correct.
"The went the way of all other First Ones, I imagine," Katie says. "Whichever way that was. How smart do you think the planet is? It didn't register as an AI when they scanned it. I remember the scholars talking about that."
"It seems like it's just basic maintenance AI, but I feel like maybe it's sleeping. I'm not sure why, or even how, but it's too complex and Yue figrued out it has psychic resonance. There's more to it than what it's doing, and I'm not even sure it's a machine. Not a machine like we know machines. Something that runs on the echoes of minds and spirits, something like that." It strikes Tasha a lot of her excited conversations end up discussing decidedly unsettling horrors. Exciting horrors, but horrors just the same. It does seem to be part of her business model. "Maybe the wills are supressed. I don't know. But I feel like it's holding back."
"So you think it's like the Niss?" Katie asks more quietly. "Some sort of civilization?"
"Something like that," Tasha agrees, nodding slowly and somewhat Conspiratorially. "'The patron' isn't from, um, around here. Samael isn't either, and the wizard rpobably knows that and uses it. He came and gave these people his knowledge, so maybe they know it. That makes me think their big world-computer-made-of-FrogMat might use it, too. A regular machine won't have psionic resonance -- at least I don't think it does? Only living minds do, so the world-machine is alive but not digitally alive. But not physically alive that we know of. It must be spiritually alive."
"Psionics are used by machines, yeah," Katie says. "I looked it up. They're used in advertising and security, and the Berserkers have even used it. Mainly as projective systems though. I don't know if there's a way to use it for reading moods or something, like Yue does."
At this, Tasha decides technology is weird. "Technology is weird," she decides aloud, reaching up to scratch her head until she feels the eyes of Liza may be upon her. "Well, I don't know, then. Maybe it really is just a really complex machine made form programmable matter that can do all these things and that's it. It's not like running a world is simple, and they probably didn't expect everyone to disappear or that the world would be hijacked by crystal-loving angels. Still, I can't escape the feeling there's something off about it. I guess we'll know after I meet Fessus."
"Well, everything is off about it," Katie claims, and waves a hand. "Did you see any animals or.. anything? What's on this continent?"
"Well I saw a million of the same tree. I mean, well, it was in different poses, but it was the same tree. I also timed how long it takes the sand to correct itself: Several minutes if you're watching, less if you're not. Oh and an automated guide came and met us, but it was just challenge-and-respond, and I got put on Fessus's itinerary." And so Tasha shrugs unknowingly. "The world's amazing, but it's the blandest amazing. Maybe they really liked bland?"
"Or it just forgot how to be interesting," Katie offers. "Maybe the whole world wasn't like this originally - I mean, it was natural and alive, but as stuff died it just got replaced by.. er.. FrogMat."
There's a Lapi curse from nearby, as Aaron gets his eye sprayed, and then Gabriel is on his way over. "I already got Hakeber and Yue," he says. "I know Yue can already understand Galactic Six, but this way we have a second source to check the auto-translate against. Your turns now." He waggles the sprayer at Katie and Liza.
"FrogMat, the answer to everything." And so Tasha shurgs again, equally unknowing. "Maybe it all had a greater purpose. Maybe it's all tied to Fessus, or Samael, or someone else and they vanished so the system lost its 'soul'. My travels are full of this unexplainable, inexplicable stuff." She scootches away, not wanting to be in the way and not certain what happens if she gets the spray in her hair or something. "With this you can read Galactic Six."
"That could be helpful," Katie agrees, and holds her eyelids open so Gabriel can spray her. Then he waves the plastic gizmo over her earpiece before turning to Liza. The doe holds her breath for the process.
"Maybe FrogMat is the answer to not getting sprayed in the eye. Whoever thought that would be fun?" Tasha rises, holding her hand out to Katherine. "Since you had to miss the exciting forest of the same trees and sand so clena it cleaned itself, want to go boggle at some random alien writing?"
"Yeah, let's find some before the other guys ruin it by reading it first," Katie says. She's not entirely kidding either - the writing in the Temple of T'thogga changed while being read, after all.
Thus Tasha leads Katie off among the structures, knowing Gabriel will understand and both of them will catch up soon. She peers at the various buildings, then points at one at random and heads towards it. "They think this may have been some sort of immortal 'living' afterlife, where people turned in to FrogMat and lived here forever. Well, forever until the Sifra probably killed them. Lets see ... I wonder if they wrote anything here. Maybe it'll tell us if they were correct? Or maybe this a pizza parlor?"
The building appears to be another temple or shrine. T'thogga is depicted, along with Stonecutter figures that look a bit more frog-like than usual. Angels? Divine servants? The only writing is beneath the god statue, saying 'Communion towards Transcendence.' There are bowls on pedestals to either side of the inscription, but they're empty. The pedestals themselves however are sculptures depicting Stonecutters drinking from the bowls.. and they slow change into different creatures as well, possibly other First Ones or Ancients, since they lose the froggy features and have often bizarre forms. One of them looks like some sort of tree even.
"So it's like a pizza parlor, but if the pizza were a drink, if the server guy was a god, and the pizza turned you in to whatever you wanted to be." Tasha thinks an earlier version of herself could have really gone for shape changing drinks, or pizza for that matter. "So, either they were already FrogMat, or else FrogMat can reconfigure living beings in to whole other types of beings. Which is amazing. I think it must also mean they still have their minds, or else it wouldn't be much of a lesson."
"Maybe it's meant to show different species coming here for the communion?" Katie suggests. "Not literal shapechanging. There's no way this world.. or that city.. would have just been for the Stonecutters. They were part of a Galactic civilization after all."
"But it shows them changing from Stonecutters to other species. That'd only make sense if this was part of their leaving ceremony, where they get their bodies back. But, well, you don't commune by leaving." But Tasha isn't sure, which isn't a surprise to her. If anything, she was sure she'd not have any idea what she's doing or what anything means. "I hope this means I don't have to become a Stonecutter to talk to Fessus."
"I'd think lots of people came to see him, if he was really all that wise and such," Katie says. "I've got lots of non-Terran fans back on Abaddon after all, and that's just as an entertainer. There must have been a lot of places where thousands of Galactic peoples interacted."
Tasha scratches her nose in thought. "I still think they turned in to things. There's a lot of body-symbolisim, and the Outsiders can be metamorphic. The FrogMat itself is metamorphic. Then there's all the tentacles and eyes and things." She shakes her head. "I think half my job is staring at this stuff and making bad guesses."
"That's something I don't see in the figures though," Katie notes, watching the shifting forms. "Tentacles and eyes and such. Nothing.. well.. monstery."
"Maybe that's reserved for the god?" Tasha steps forward towards the bowls, deciding action may work where words fail. She waves a hand in what she hopes might impart a desire for functionality. "But maybe it's all just personal? How much of Silent-One Star worship would make any sense to us if we didn't already know a little about it? Why all the light, do people turn in to beams of light? Do they worship light? Religions have too much symbolisim and internal meaning. Even the Progenitor cults were so wrong it's kind of embarassing when looking back."
"Well, you did find the Progenitors, sort of," Katie points out. "They couldn't have been too wrong."
Nothing happens when Tasha approaches the bowls. But.. she's already told the planet or whatever that she isn't here for communion, but to see Fessus.
"Well they were only right about locations and 'how many such and such to bring where'. At least Eve knew what she was talking about, but I guess she was a 'first hand' source. Maybe Samael or Fessus will pass out bibles." That nothing happens doesn't surprise her; she remembers she's not here for whatever this is anyway. "I turned down communion. Now I wonder if I turned down getting to try being a tree annnnd ... " She points at the pictograms, " ... whatever that is."
"Would you want to be something like that?" Katie asks. "If they are showing changing into different forms, then they can't be biological matter. Is someone made of FrogMat really alive though? Or just.. a simulation of a living person?"
"Those kind of questions keep me awake at night." Despite the joking tone, it's actually true. Tasha remembers the sleepless nights fretting over whether Fred, Nora and Mariel were really people and, if so, how they related to their originals. Were they copies? Reincarnations? Or, were they machines made by hyper-advanced technology, never intended to be real? She still isn't entirely sure and may never be, and so the question remains an uncomfortable one. Her ears flatten. "Well I don't want to be FrogMat, even if I can see the advantages.I know there's all kinds of life, even life beyond our reality. I wouldn't mind trying to be something else, maybe I'd learn something? But I'm not sure I'd want to remains a ... " She frowns at the image again. " ... winged four-armed centaur with ... is that a beak? And I think its tail is made of tentacles. Those feet may be hands, and maybe those aren't wings."
"I have a feeling that the FrogMat only works here on Praxafallopus too," Katie says. "It seemed like a bit deal that they found it here and it still worked. Even the Khattan stuff needs external support."
"I think so too. Besides, I fall apart enough as it is, I don't need to fall apart in to FrogDust." Tasha grins, then waves a hand towards the door. "Maybe we can find where I'm supposed to go, lets try the next building."
The others are waiting outside. "The others have started their own explorations," Gabriel says. "I think we can probably find the most important place near the center of the city."
Tasha pivots on a hoof, angling for the center. "Then we're heading towards the center while they're distracted. I'd rather not have to explain why I'm here infront of everyone, I'm not sure what they'll think of my 'patron'. I'm not sure what I think of my 'patron'." She slows to make sure the others are following, then makes pace, adding, "I'd better go inside alone."
"You always say that," Aaron notes. "It only works when you're in your Titan you know."
"We might have questions to ask too," Hakeber says.
"Hey I went alone in to the future and in in to a corridor to the beginning and end of everything, and I came back okay!" The young woman gives Katie and then Gabriel a prompting look, as if for confirmation and support that she is indeed okay. "I've gone to many places alone!"
"So? Even if you go alone, this time we can see and hear everything you do anyway, and still talk to you," Hakeber points out, tapping her earpiece.
Tasha's brows arch, she is undone by technology. "Maybe I'll just pretend to talk to someone and sound like I'm hearing things," she mock-threatens.
"We're here for you, Tasha.. that means you're sort of stuck with us," Gabriel points out. "I don't trust this place. It's haunted, if it's haunted by technology. So.. what aren't you telling us? At the very least, having Yue there to tell you if you're being lied to or manipulated with psionics will be pretty useful."
"Uhhh, what makes you think I'm not telling you something?" Tasha inquires, scratching at her nose and splaying her ears, and hoping she looks somehow innocent. "I mean I told you a giant goat-man with wings asked me to come here and find his wayward minion who somehow works with Fessus. He's possibly some other figure in pan-galactic mythology. He likes music and he has pipes." The more she relates, the more she realizes her life sounds completely crazy.
"Well, you haven't said why you want to talk to Fessus at all yet," Gabriel points out. "And why you were so tense crossing the bridge."
The young woman makes a noise, it's not really a grunt and it's not a snort, but somehow both and neither. She spreads her arms and tilts her head back. "What's there to say? The bridge spans a /soul eating chasm/, which is the /same/ soul eating space-flattener technnology that I /almost/ tossed myself in to if a Titanian named Lore hadn't stopped me. I'd have lost all my memories, all that amde me, me." Her fingers wiggle. "What else ... Fessus. I want to ask him about this god-thing, because I'm /surrounded. by gods, and maybe he as some sort of insight. He knows /how they become gods/ somehow. He knows /things/. And besides, he may know how I can reach Samael, or more about Thotep, or Horus, or the Ogdoad or all the rest. It's just ... " She bites her lip a moment, then pushes on. "I don't exactly trust the goat. He's /way/ better with people than the others are, but I'm sick of Horus and that /kills/ me, and I'm mad at the Progenitors, and, well, maybe this Fessus can give me something else. A dif
ferent way."
"He's a wise man," Aaron notes. "They never explain anything, that's what makes them seem wise," he claims, putting his hands behind his head as he walks. "Plus he's probably dead, or else will want something. The Sacred Tea of Totoro or the Magic Feather of Foofara.. the last guy seemed like he knew a lot but what did he really tell you? 'Bring me the body of my pet and then I'll tell you something useful.'"
"You don't have to be so cynical, bun," Hakeber says.
"Save the universe Tasha, make the bad part of me do what he's told Tasha, you're my devil Tasha. I don't know why I do these things." But do them she does, and so Tasha keeps walking. "Maybe Fessus was like me when he was younger? When he started? Maybe he'll understand. And Aaron's always like that, probably because things are always like this."
"I had to figure things out as I went along, usually while being chased by something unfriendly," the Lapi claims. "I've earned the right to be cynical. I'm sure there's some sort of ancient conspiracy behind it all..."
"Right.. conspiracy.." Yue mutters and rolls her eyes.
"But I already figured out the ancient conspiracy," Tasha notes, which she's fairly sure is true. Against all odds, she was the one who returned the Markers, and she met Atun, which meant she really met Vril. There's a universe out there that knows her name. "A few of them, I think." She counts off on her fingers. "The creators, the Progenitors, who killed the ancients, where life came from, what the Ogdoad are up to ... "
The road into the city center is a few kilometers, but there is something visible at the end - a rather fat tower. It looks like it's made of intertwined branches or tentacles, and there's a big eye sculpted just beneath the domed top.
"Assuming you can trust any of the information," Aaron notes. "Maybe the Progenitors got it wrong themselves."
Tasha looks up, then nods as if she had expected this structure all along. "The tentacles and the eyeballs are really good indicators of Outsider religions, probably because they often look like that in our universe when they're not being feelings or the wind or something." She points up at the eye and wiggles her finger. "And I don't think they're wrong. They told me themselves they did the Uplifting. Thotep confirmed it. Horus confirmed it. I might be off about the others, but probably not a lot. Well, that's why I'm here." She does not add she's probably also here because she jsut can't seem to stop her endless search for answers and interesting beings to say 'hi' to.
Hakeber frowns at the edifice. "It looks a bit suggestive," she notes as they get closer. "I mean, it's a tower.. covered in veins.. uh.."
"Not atypical for religious symbolism," Yue claims.
"I think Hake-bear is being suggestive." Yet anothe responsibility for Tasha to handle, but she will, of course, take it on with dignity. Later. "But ... It kind of does. More like a Karnor, less like ... uhm ... anyway, maybe it's a fertility cult?" She shrugs rather a great deal, hurrying along.
The tower is also 'floating' - held in place by struts and more of the 'lace' that opens up over the black sea beneath. The bridge leading to the apparent entrance is a lot thinner than that leading into the city, but still wide enough to be safe.
"Coincidence," Gabriel insists. "There were thousands of sapient forms in the last round of Civilization - this couldn't have been that universal a structure."
"I guess handrails just aren't religiously appropriate," the hybrid woman mutters as she angles towards the bridge. "Well, maybe it's literal? There could be Outsiders that look like that. They have a lot of forms. One looks like an eyeball surrounded and still part of little gnawing worm-things."
"Sounds like.." Yue starts to say, then shudders. "Eh.. no. I refuse to accept flying spaghetti gods. Don't spit over the side of the bridge though, just in case."
Tasha considers for a moment what soulless spit would be, but quickly decides that down that road lies madness -- and not a palitable madness like the kind she's chasing after. It would be a inane madness. "Well, single file, stay close but not too close. Be prepare to grab anyone or drop if the bridge shakes. I think it's just here to scare us, though. I think the city of forever suspended over the pit of oblivion is symbolic somehow, or maybe a reminder."
"There are five other pits like this, but only one city suspended over one of them," Gabriel notes.
Halfway across the bridge, it's obvious that the gateway at the end is squirming. The tentacles are smaller there, and animated.
"I wonder if that's important. Sometimes numbers have meaning, it's called, um, numerology I think. I read about it in one of the books about Atum." The young woman walks, slowling only momentarily once she sees the door is animated and not alive or out to get them, She lifts a hand and points them out. "The symbolisim is increasing. With all these tentacles, I think Samael or Fessus must be similiar to the Outer beings. In the chamber I met Thotep, there were structures that resembled things like this, too, and also one where the Source was imprisoned. They're always close to where they dwell or appear."
"Five is an important number," Aaron agrees. "Show up a lot. Also twenty-three. And the digits in that add up to five."
"Did you ever think you were too into conspiracy theories?" Liza asks him. The buck gives her a suspicious look, and replies, "That what they want you to think.."
For a moment Tasha wonders if the gate will reach out and get feely, then she decides it's not the first time and keeps approaching. She can only hope if it does it's as comfortable as the Source. "Why's five so important?"
And then another thing occurs to Tasha. "Who's 'they'?" A split second later and she remembers all the times she's intentionally obfuscated the truth of what she's doing, who she works for, and why she's on her seemingly endless quest. She works for gods, lots of them, traversing space and time and reaching places and beings whole cults and nations worshipped only as distant ideas. "Wait, am I 'they' now?"
"It's associated a lot with Sifra sites, but the largest one, Caltrop, is based on four. But the doorways have five sides," Yue explains. "Really though, five just shows up a lot in base-10 numerical systems. Although.." and here she pauses to glance at Aaron before continuing, ".. one of Terra's earliest civilizations used base-23 for counting."
The tentacles stay on the walls, but still wiggle. There aren't any eyes or mouths mixed in however, aside from the single cyclopean one on the outside of the building. There's dim lighting inside the entry hall, with no clear source.
"More weirdness to think about. Now I'll be counting the numbers on everything." As if Tasha didn't have enough to catalogue, it makes her feel very put upon. Now there's math, too. "Well, in we go. If anyone wants to wait outside, now's the time. I'm going in to find my wizard."
"Holographic light field in here," Yue notes. "I'm not detecting any active psionics yet. But even with the FrogMat's abilities, there could be illusions in play here. If we separate we could get lost even if we're in the same chamber together."
"You know I can't seperate and get lost when I'm alone." Tasha turns to stick her tongue out at the others before turning back and boldly walking forward. "I hope there's no ceremony or required words like before, we can all understand Six but we still know very little about their culture. At least it seemed like they got a diverse amount of visitors."
And then Tasha walks into a wall. It's not a physical one, or a force field.. exactly. But she knows that if she takes another step.. she'll die!
And this causes Tasha to stumble to a stop with extreme abruptness! She chokes as she does, the suddeness overwhemling power of the emotion robbing her momentarily of breath and all but the need to not go any farther.
Everyone else has frozen as well. "Ugh.. that's really cranked up," Yue says through clenched teeth. "Active psionics. Fear inducer.."
Tasha rubs her face with both hands. "Thank you terror beams, I really needed that." She takes a few more breathes, exhales, then straightens and runs her hands down her cheeks. "No one else shot me with terror beams. Are we supposed to stop? Hello? HELLO, terror-beam wizard??"
Gabriel's and Katie's hackles are up, and Hakeber... takes a few steps forward and puts her hand on Tasha's shoulder. "It's not real," she notes. "I've felt worse fear. It's just tricking our bodies."
"So have I," Tasha all buts growls. She lifts her hands and waves them through the air, as if she might shoo away the fear inducing projections. "I'm not scared, I've felt worse, it just annoys me. The others never resorted to ... cheap tricks. You know what, Hake? This is what." After working hr hands a moment, the hybrid woman sets her shoulders, her teeth, lays her ears back and plows forward faster than she had been.
She gains ground, despite every instinct telling her she's about to die.. and then she feels worse. Her view distorts, making it hard to stay balanced, and there's pain. If it's all in her head, it's pretty convincing. "Just crawl," Hakeber calls. "Pretend you're drunk."
"Does being really angry help?" By now Tasha's hackles are up too and her feathers have puffed out. She stumbles forward, catches herself with her taloned hand, then straightens in to a kind of lurching run forward. Having this temple torture her so she can jump through its hoops just for a chance to meet the being within smacks a little too close to her current problems, turning an ancient structure in to a metaphor for the difficulties of her mission and, in particular, with Horus. She refuses to crawl, not wanting to give the place the satisfaction, drawing strength from her own stubborness she begin to laugh.
"O-wwwww," Tasha utters, somewhere between sarcasim and real pain. "It hurts so much. Do it again. Curse me, beat me up! You know what really hurts? How tactless this is! Real gods don't have to bother with tricks! Or ugly temples! G-gah ..!"
Yue manages to walk a little ways further, with Hakeber just behind Tasha.. crawling. "I can block it a little," Yue claims through gritted teeth. It's slow going, but there's progress. Eventually the barrier is breached though.
When it all stops, Tasha drops to hold herself up by grasping her knees, laughing. "Take that terror beams." She sucks in a breath, straights, then exhales and rubs her shoulders. "Ow, right? This better not make me sore. I-is everyone ... " She doesn't complete the thought, just turning around to make sure everyone is with her.
The ones to make it through the gauntlet are Yue, Hakeber and Aaron, while the others are still stuck at the initial start. "That was nasty," the buck says, looking like he's run a marathon. "Not as scary as my mother though."
Tasha blinks to see Gabriel isn't with her. She immediately begins back towards him, but stops just short of where she remembers the barrier to be. "Gabriel?" She calls out, all the bravado gone. "Are you okay?"
"I think Sinai natives may have some natural resistance to psionics," Yue posits.
Gabriel steps back and joins Liza and Katie, panting hard. "I can't get through," he admits.
"Well, Tasha's made of magic, Aaron is insane and I'm.. pretty messed up," Hakeber claims. "Maybe that's what gives us an edge here?"
Tasha lays her ears back, her desire to kill the beam projector growing at a prodigious rate. No one hurts her Gabriel. "Do ... do you want me to pull you through? I can come back? Or ... " She looks around, trying to figure out where the projector might be, wondering if she can break it with FrogMat everywhere.
"It's a test," Katie calls. "I mean, it's obviously a test of.. determination, I guess."
"They're not able to get as angry as we can, Tasha," Aaron says.
"I'm determined to break it now, does that count?" Tasha continues to eye the walls, then the invisible barrier. She could make it again ... She could ... "I could go back, bring everyone forward."
"No, don't do that," Gabriel says. "If it's a test, we have to pass or fail on our own. I don't think cheating will be looked on kindly."
"Grr," Tasha says, as well as does, her growling. She flexes her hands a moment, closes her eyes, takes a dep breath and then exhales. "Fine. As much as I want to cheat just to show this system what's what, I can't risk endangering everyone and it'd be kind of a stupid way to die, even if it would show my anger and determination, but it's not smart enough for that!" The last is said rather loudly, such that the walls might hear. She then snaps off a salute to Gabriel before blowing a kiss first to him, then to Katie. She thumbs behind herself. "I'm going to go get tortured by more tests now. Maybe, um, enjoy the architecture?"
"We'll be watching through the comms," Gabriel says. "I'm sure Liza will have some tea for when you come back."
"I'm going to need it after all this ... " Tasha waggles a hand airly. " ... crap. Well, off we go. Come on unwitting companions, I'll make you regret coming along when I said I'd go alone!"
And with that the young woman turns, slings her arms around Yue and Hakeber's shoulders, and walks forward. "So, think it was anger, determination, or maybe it was insulting the arcitecture?"
"Could have been body odor," Aaron claims, and pats Tasha's butt before jogging forward out of range.
"That can't be, Liza takes care of me and Katie smells amazing at all times." And so Tasha strudes forward, fully aware she could plow in to another pain wall at any moment, like so much sucker punch to the face. She wonders what sort of gods this might produce. Angry ones, she suspects. Whatever the case may be, she'll keep moving forward through it, just as she always has.