Session VI: If I was a powerful item in a hidden temple where would I be? - Report

General Summary

The group wandered deeper into the temple after having just dispatched a group of rogue Hereteks. There was a brief discussion about how to proceed forward and the group thought it best if Isaac go back to the lander and guard it for the time being. The rest of the team slogged forward down the brazen brass-like hallways. As they moved forward a gently swirling mist began to play over the floor seeming to drift and dance from unfelt zephyrs which pushed it about in a hypnotic and sentient sort of way. This mist must of triggered Bjorns memory somehow and he voxed back to the Eternal Perdition for a status update on the great ice storm Ullr and wanted to know if it had once again started moving towards the crew's location.   Static and garble were the only sounds he heard back which Bjorn seemed alarmed about. Somehow Stig was the voice of reason and said that they were under ice, under water and under a temple plus they had a lander so if the ice storm had moved they were still protected. This statement of the obvious seemed to allay Bjorn's fears significantly and he motioned that the group move on ahead without further delay. As they moved Bjorn made the determination that something was off about the dimensions of this temple as they had largely walked in a single direction once inside and the exterior that they saw on their way in was a fairly square shaped ziggurat that wasn't very long on any given side. The relatively flat ocean floor gave nothing away that suggested subterranean tunnels either.   Eventually after making their way through the blackness of the old tomb-like hallways of this unknowably ancient xeno temple the party would up at a crossroads. The hallway split into a Y from their current position and the group decided to divide and hopefully conquer. Stig and Rasp moved off to the left as Rasp refused to be stuck with a couple of filthy xeno's with nothing but betrayal on their minds while Bjorn continued to lead the others to the right.   The group trundled onwards down their respective hallways as Stig and Rasp both forged ahead throwing caution to the wind as they created quite the ruckus between Rasp's metallic spider legs clanking off of the reverberant metal floors and curved hallways and Stig just being generally too large and too stupid to know what being stealthy looks like.   On the other side Bjorn, Ani and Murk attempted to keep things subtly but the large Ork and captain had too much mass as well as bits and bobs on their persons to be successful. Any stealth Ani had achieved was lost by association as she moved forward astride the other two with her.   As the two groups moved down their chosen paths they noticed a bright blue light filtering in at the end of the hall. As they approached the next room the light turned to a darker blue, then a lighter purple transitioning to a darker shade and then from there an emergency hued red. Reaching the openings of their rooms the groups took stock of their situation. The large chamber they found themselves in was vast. The two corridors the split group had taken, emptied into a shared space but between the two open doorways a strange amalgam of transparent pseudo-polymer sectioned off the room from either side being able to directly reach the other.   The group could see each other and communicate through their micro-beads still but sound didn't pass through the strange wall very well. Even gunshots would be damped to the point of sounding more like a person falling into a pile of pillows. The exterior walls had two catwalks stacked on top of each other on either side opposite the separating wall in the middle. Each catwalk had two doors that led sideways, perpendicular to the clear wall in the center of the chamber.   In the center of this grand opening though was the real point of interest. A giant 25 foot tall golden statue laying on its back on a table of matching size. The strange clear wall ran vertically up it's body bisecting the figure left to right. It lay motionless. The golden plates covering it's body vaguely reminded the party of musculature that one would expect to see on a human or humanoid body. The head of the creature was a largely featureless face. Sunken eye sockets, small opening for a mouth, no ears and no nose adorned the figure but across its entire form were impossibly intricate swirl patterns that were too symmetrical to be naturally forming in the metal.   The smell of Ozone permeated the air and the party started to cautiously move about the large area. Murk helped Ani onto his shoulders so the Aeldari could climb up the rest of the distance to the first catwalk. Once the young woman had reached her goal Murk headed off to the back of the room to reconnect with Bjorn ho had snuck to the back door leading out opposite of where they came in. Bjorn thought hard and attempted to decipher the pictograms covering the door as he had seen Ani do previously and he attempted to get the door open.   The door jiggled and quivered a bit but seemed locked into place due to the strange clear substance running down the center of the long gallery. Upon the door being activated the eyes of the large golden statue lit up with a violent green. Stig had wandered over to the table on his side of the clear wall and waited in anticipation for the large creature to come to life and be his new friend. At this point it may be worth checking to see if Stig has a closed head injury that is effecting him because even in his own past whenever something large came to life around him it was invariably a "bad thing" to explain the results in his own parlance.   Rasp saw that Ani had been going places on her side of the clear wall and while his search for a control panel had come to naught on the ground level he would not be outdone by a xeno, no matter how superior her hind quarters seemed to be. Nothing that wouldn't be improved upon with a couple of steel plates in the old tech-priest's mind. Rasp then spider climbed his way up the wall to the first level of catwalks on his side, accidentally flipping himself over upsides down while his legs continued to move onward somewhat autonomously.   Bjorn was getting nervous about his crew being isolated from each other with a potential threat clearly starting to become animated so he did the only reasonable thing he could think of at the time and shot the wall. The results were not as hoped for however. A small carbon score was left on the location that Bjorn had shot and the strange substance only dented in the most superficial of ways.   Across the room Ani had walked to the first door located on her catwalk and took the necessary steps to decipher the runes to get it open. Looking inside was a narrow hallway seemingly composed completely of weird bluish cords which wrapped and looked in random ways to for the impression of a hallway but it was narrow more like you would expect to see from a cave than a proper hall. The room was warm like a womb and the smell was somewhat acrid. The blue cables that composed the entirety of the room she was looking at were strange to the point that Ani investigated them more carefully. Something in her brain told her that the cords were wrong somehow almost like they had been made from processed soul stones by some unknown method. Her brain made the next possible leap and she started to cut at them and their wrongness. After cutting the cords it's unsettling electric blue color drained from it in both directions like water slowly draining from a curly straw cut in half.   The wrists, fingers and feet started to move on the statue as though it were slowly waking up and starting to stretch after a long nap. Stig looked on in anticipation and Rasp found what he thought was a dataport up on the catwalk. He shambled over to it and noticed it was suitable size to connect his mechadendrite. Shouting to the others that all was in hand he jammed his powered appendage in to the outlet. Sparks flew and internal circuitry sizzled but luckily Rasp's built in surge protectors flipped before any permanent damage was done though he did have the clawing sensation that something was wrong internally, he would have to do a full diagnostic on his systems when he got back to the Eternal Perdition.   At this point it was clear things were going south and the threat was imminent. Bjorn half afraid and half ordering shout to "take it's head off" as he leveled his sniper rifle at the monstrosity. In his haste something must have been calibrated incorrectly as he missed and jammed him weapon at the same time. Murk took the statement made in haste as orders from on high to be followed in the most exact way possible. The large Ork bounded over to the table with the large robot and climbed up near it's lower head and neck as it lay on it's back.   With a great low grunt, Murk braced and heaved on the huge creature's lower jaw. Cords and wires strained and there was the sound of pops as smaller wires snapped from the overwhelming pull. The creature's jaw was wrenched askew and the statue began to get up off the table in response to the assault. The monstrosity swung it's legs over the side of the table and assumed a seated position. With as annoyed a look as possible with an inanimate face the creature tried to grab Ork with both hands.   Stig saw that his new friend was being misunderstood and desperately searched for a way through the strange clear wall in order to intervene. On the table he noticed a roughly human shaped indentation and a matching one on the other side of the wall. To him it was obvious that is was some sort of teleportation device and without hesitation jumped up onto the table and inserted himself in.    Terrible pain coursed through the big man as his living essence was drained away, converted to bluish energy and then sent through the air to the large statue. The blue motes entered the metal being and rejuvenated it. The askew jaw was reset and the creature stood up away from the table with renewed energy. As it stood the wall reformed behind it to block any meddling from the far side.   Rasp was still shaking off the weird feelings he got from plugging directly into the xeno structure but he noticed a true data-port on the table in the place where the creature previously laid. He dropped down from the catwalk he was on and headed over to his goal and plugged in.   Bjorn and Eve had both been thwarted before but decided to take some shots at the large husk barreling down on the Ork making him look small for possibly the first time in his life. Their shots found purchase but it was impossible to tell the true extrent of the damage they had rendered as the construct seemed to largely ignore it's most recent threats and instead continued to focus on the greenskin.   The Golem swung again at Murk, trying to send him sailing with a metallic backhand but the slow methodical way in which it struck was too easy for Murk to predict, thanks to the genetic memories of battle past on by his forebears. The swing went wide and Murk used the opportunity to skitter up the giant's arm in the shadowed blind spot that had been created. With almost unseen speed and agility from an Ork the burly gladiator was soon at the Golem's throat again, quite literally. The Ork tugged and pulled with a near deafening "Waaaaagh!" Murk heaved with all his might and separated the head of the creature from it's body. Sparking cables and wire snapped and released their tension, pops and zaps were heard as the ground was showered in strange bluish sparks and the tell tale sound of a machine powering down was heard.    Tossing the head of the monster to the floor Murk hopped down as the torso of the creature slumped but refused to fall over. The head's eyes were still a light and the jaw of the creature mouthed open and closed like a fish without water. With a few more convincing whacks those movements stopped as well.   Rasp finally accomplished what he had set out to do the entire battle and found a way to deactivate the wall. It's cascaded downward from the ceiling and dematerialized at the same time in a shrinking pixilated sort of way. Once the wall had disappear completely though the door at the back of the room which Bjorn had already found the combination to open was released from it's bonds and it opened as well.   Hoarfrost and cold spilled in the room from the blackness beyond the newly opened doorway. The warp could be felt on the back over everyone's necks and though the room was impossibly dark to see into some thing pulsed a deep blue at the back of it, beckoning you forward. Whatever was in the room was waiting for you. Anticipating your approach. No turning back now though. Whatever secrets this temple yet had to be discovered egged the group onward and into the final chamber they strode, hoarfrost crushing under foot as they went. 'You'll know it when you see it'. The statement that Chime Hobart had left the Crew with echoed in the back of their minds.

Rewards Granted

3xp
Giant golden robot head...? (Yet to be successfully collected) - Two large green shards inside
Giant golden robot body...? (Yet to be successfully collected)

Missions/Quests Completed

Objective 2 - Collecting the Cargo

Character(s) interacted with

More strange happenings in the temple
Giant golden robot - fought

Related Reports

Session V - How far down is hell and is it always this cold?

Notes

Ani mistakenly believe that the strange blue power conduits running through the inner working of the temple are made from processed soul stone material.