So much time and effort must’ve gone into making this temple. Whoever had worshipped here must’ve really wanted to please their god.
“Oi, grav, you coming?”
Warcry and Valthorpe were already under the first-floor colonnade, in front of a wide stone doorway. I caught up with them.
“I haven’t had occasion to see the ferals on Van Diemann for myself,” Valthorpe said, “but I did some research on them last night. From what I can tell, you’ve been fighting mainly radiation-based ferals?”
Warcry grimaced. “Too right.”
The hairy academic looked confused at Warcry’s reaction, so I explained for him:
“They’re pretty juicy.”
“Oh. Oh.” Valthorpe’s face squinched up with disgust. “Well, it’s not known what animates the ferals in the ruins here on Sarca, but I don’t think you’ll have a problem with... juiciness. They’re quite dry in spite of the humidity in this hemisphere. The best way to kill them seems to be crushing the precious stone inlaid on their foreheads. We haven’t come across any without a forehead stone yet, so the working theory is that it’s their power source.”
“Good to know,” Warcry said, cracking his knuckles.
The academic looked from the stone doorway to us. “Do you boys have any armor to don or special defensive abilities you need to activate before you go in?”
“We usually worry about it on the fly.” I sent out a radar blast of Dead Reckoning. On Van Diemann, ferals showed up as sludgy brown dots rotting where they stood, not flickering candles like living beings, but that initial sweep didn’t give me anything. “I can’t see any life points inside.”
“They’re in there,” Valthorpe promised. “When we first found this place, we were attacked the moment we tried to set foot inside.”
“Maybe they’re motion-activated.” I expected the joke to fall flat because my Earth humor always did.
But Warcry smirked. “Only one way to find out, isn’t there?”
Fight at the Temple
THE AIR INSIDE THE temple’s low-ceilinged entry was much cooler than outside, and a low moaning breeze blew through from somewhere. The first room was huge, and studded with wide stone columns. Those were probably necessary to support the multiple tons of stonework overhead, but it was obvious right away that they were going to pose a problem for us. They kept the light from the barred windows from reaching very far into the room.
Vines and roots hung down from cracks overhead and snaked across the buckling stone floor, making it a good place to twist an ankle. Low clouds of Miasma drifted close to the ground like turquoise fog. When I pulled a lungful into my Spirit sea, I got the impression of age, like it had been around undisturbed for centuries, maybe longer.
Something rattled. Dirt rained down on my head, getting in my hair and down the back of my shirt.
I scooted out of the fall and looked up. Hairy roots hung down through a sunlit crack. There must be windows upstairs, too.
A shadow flashed across the crack, making that rattling sound again.
Dead Reckoning freaked out behind me. Two attackers incoming.
I spun around, hitting the Ki-speed and strength.
A pair of skeletons shot toward me, holding hands like kindergarteners on the buddy system. Their bones were yellow with age and carved with intricate scrolling designs. At first glance, they looked almost human—only the wing bones jointed behind their shoulder blades proved they weren’t. A green gemstone glowed in the forehead of the closest and a purple one in the forehead of the second, and they both packed swords with a dozen whiplike metal blades.
Urumis.
At the last second, they dropped the hand-hold and split up, spreading out to divide my attention.
I planted my feet and shoved a palm strike at the green one. “Rigor Mortis!”
The Miasma slammed into the skeleton’s empty rib cage, but maybe because it only had minimal ligaments and sinews left to hold its bones together, Rigor Mortis didn’t paralyze it on the spot.
“Moldering Bones!”
It slid off the yellowed surface without even damaging the scrollwork.
“Fine.” I covered both arms with my Death Metal shields. “We’ll do this the hard way.”
I rushed the green-stoned skeleton. From the corner of my eye, I saw its purple buddy sprinting around to flank me.
In front, the green skeleton’s urumi screamed through the air. I took the whips on my right shield and bashed the skeleton in the chest with my left. The shot didn’t stagger it, but it did cave in the thing’s ribs with a crunch like dry twigs snapping.
Almost immediately, the ribs popped back out, repairing themselves.
Somewhere behind me, the baseball bat ping of Warcry’s prosthetic echoed through the low-ceilinged space, followed by splintering bones. Yellow teeth skittered across the floor, bouncing off my boots.
Dead Reckoning sent me a map of skeletal life points surrounding us. Two on me, two on Warcry. Weirdly, now that we were fighting them, they showed up as a static glow, not flickering or oozing, but as solid as the gems in their foreheads.
That was good news. If I could see the life points, I could grab them.
The purple skeleton was getting too close to my six, so I shot out a back kick to intercept it as Dead Man’s Hand reached for its life point.
For someone with meat on, the kick would’ve been devastating, but without any meat, my foot sailed through empty space until it caught spine. The purple skeleton’s upper body slapped forward, pelvis and ribs tangling around my foot.
Lightning strikes of pain burned up my hip and side as urumi blades laid open the material of my jeans and shirt and shredded the muscle.
At the same time, Dead Man’s Hand closed around the