Ravenscraig loomed over the party as they stood at the lip of the crater that kissed up against the edge of chaotic terrain that made up Ravencraig's foundation. The ancient seeming stone and steel edifice rose almost fifty feet upwards, after itself being placed on the edge of a craig that loomed over the surrounding countryside, giving it a slanted, dangerous appearance. Light shone from several windows, and the faint shimmer of a life sustaining field hazed the vacuum around the place itself - indicating that one wouldn't need an airlock to step into breathable air.
Ami stepped forward through that shimmering field and to the base of the corrugated metal stairs that went up the side of the craig - switchbacks coming every twenty feet to create a series of landings.
She looked back at the party, unfolding her helmet back, then breathing out a fog of steam from her mouth. "The air's breathable, but it's fucking cold!" She said, her teeth chattering as she almost immediately tugged her helmet back up to give herself some warmth.
"You're t-t-telling me-me," Rakain chattered. "Being c-c-cold blood-blooded isn't the b-b-b-best idea out here. Can fell this sh-shit through the suit."
"I just learned to toss fireballs, I can warm it up for everyone!" Hana said, snickering slightly as she headed into the station with the others.
"Thanks for the warning." Sam teased as she elected to keep her life support active as she followed the group. One benefit of it was climate control after all.
Ami laughed, quietly. "Well, that's comforting..." She said, putting her boot up on the edge of one of the metal stairs - knocking some snow ice from both her boot and the stair. She looked at the others. "So, ah, who wants to take the lead? Since I'm too sexy to allow the fangs of vicious death near..." She smirked. Sam gave a chuckle and stepped ahead of the group, her eyes scanning their path from behind the visor in her helmet.
Hana snickered, "I figure one of our melee badasses might want to take that."
"So long as you don't focus on the 'ass' part of that too much." Sam teased.
The eerie quality of the setting was overriding Xata's Banter functions. She took it all in silently, her violin case over one shoulder and a hand on her sword hilt. Rakain cranked his suit's limited climate controls all the way up, warding off the worst of the chill, but he still felt uncomfortably cold.
They started up and up and up - and as they walked, they found that the stairs were rough and poorly maintained. They creaked and groaned with every step, the metal threatening to give way in some places. But they came to the first landing and found nothing amiss - and then Sam started up the second, moving steadily forward.
"Be warned, looks like an oversized spider ahead, it is watching us." Sam whispered over the comm as she tried to approach the landing in manner to keep herself between it and the rest of the group.
"Good," Rakain said, his tread growing heavier. "Maybe a good scrap will warm me up."
Xata pulled her sword free of its sheath and prepared herself. Be careful, she messaged Sam quietly.
Ami shook her head. "Freaking spiders..." She whispered as the group became aware of the large, dark shape that Sam had noticed. As they watched, it shifted from side to side, restlessly.
"Hey, um.. do you guys want to try something nuts? I got a Wildwise implant before we left Absalom, which lets me talk to animals and magical beasts. I could try and talk to it?" Hana said curiously.
Ami blinked. "That's freaking cool..." She said, laughing quietly.
"That would be wise-" Sam started, her grin coming out in her tone. "See if it will let us pass?"
"That sounds amazing," Xata said, impressed.
Hana nodded, "So, I'll head up, you guys wait here so at least I can distract it and give you an ambush." She snickered slightly, slipping past the others, heading up to the spider. Once she was far enough away from her group, she called out "Hey there! Can you understand me?"
The spider stood, and hissed back - and thanks to Hana's connection to their com units, the rest of them were able to overhear the spider's comments, even if they wouldn't be able to speak to it unless they asked Hana to translate.
"Yesss, oilthing..." the spider hissed. "But you bear no jade, and sssso the conversation must end with...yess...delicious..." It clicked forward, revealing that the hideous thing was an amaglamation of a spider, a fly, and a scoripain, with buzzing wings and a huge, curving tail. Venom dripped from its mouthparts as it churred, quietly. "Those who bear no jade...are food..."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Hana raised her hands, "You never even asked if I had any jade! For all you know I have it and you're totally going to piss off your master by trying to make me food."
"True..." The spiderish creature clicked, and seemed to be as if she was waiting.
Hana reached into her backpack, pulling out one of the jade ravens they'd found on the ninja, "This something like what you're looking for?"
The spider bobbed, then hissed in frustration. "Pass, pass..." It scuttled backwards into the shadows, clearly more than a bit ticked off that it hadn't gotten a chance to eat.
"Is no one gonna mention that that thing called Hana 'oilthing'?" Rakain said as the spider went away.
Hana waved over the others, "Come on guys. This is one of those guardian creatures, be sure to show it your raven because I'm sure it wants to take time and verify each and every one of us has a jade token. Nothing boring at all about that!" She said cheerfully.
Ami snorted. "Well, if it goes for the blood, that would be what it notices most about her..." she muttered to Rakian, walking forward as the spider watched them go by. They started up the stairs - feeling a bit relieved at having evaded that potentially awful fight.
"Not that bad as these things can go," Xata told Rakain as she passed by the spider warily.
"You guys aren't oilthings," Rakain protested as they walked. "You're like...sexy pervbots."
Xata grinned. "I like that designation better."
Hana snickered slightly, "To be fair, I don't usually assume spiders to be the most politically correct beings."
As the group walked up the next level, they heard a soft sound of voices speaking.
"I don't trust that Wodes..." the first was muttering. "He claims these adventurers are on our tail, but I've not seen anything that's more than just shadowrunners being shadowrunners - that tall bastard had enough enemies."
"Shut up, Tenzig..." the other voice said. "You're ordered, we stick with the orders..."
They came up to the very lip of the final landing and peeked over at the balcony leading to the inside of Ravenscraig. Lounging there were three humanoid ravens - their fur black, their feathers black, their beaks long and narrow. Unlike the dire corbies of the Rineice asteroid, though, they were lean and muscular and spoke in elegant, slightly Tian accented voices. They wore sleek ninja-suits, similar to those as the boarding party that had attacked the funerary shuttle.
"Keep an eye out for any intruders," the third tengu said, shaking his head.
"If any were coming, that horrible spider eater would have sang out. Likely eaten them too," the first, bitchy tengu muttered.
"We dodged a bullet there at least," Rakain muttered.
Xata telepathic messaged the others.
We can sneak attack them if we move quickly.
Hana nodded to the other robot, sending her own mental message, Sounds like a good idea to me. I figure we take them down.
The directionless hum in Xata's throat was subvocal, the music all internal as she activated her magic and moved toward the group of Tengu. She flickered and vanished. As the group started to move forward, the Tengu looked over at a faint creak - Sam's weight on the ground. "What the fuck!?" One of the Tengu squaked - and it seemed battle was joined. Save that none of the bird-men knew that Xata was there. So there was that!
The tengu darted forward. Their blades were in their hands as they rushed forward, moving utterly silently. One slashed out with their curved blade, catching Sam on the forearm with a spray of sparks, while another back flipped and landed on the stairs behind Ami and Hana. The third leaped over and landed before Rakain - all of them moving to disrupt the formation of the party!
Xata Sang in her throat, imparting an extra vibration to her blade as she struck out at the nearest Tengu. She felt the shock of impact in her arm as her blade hit home... but sensed instantly it hadn't cut deep enough to kill.
Hana looked at the tengu who'd rushed her and grinned, "Did you know I'm part dragon? Which part? Why this part!" She said, opening her mouth and spitting a gout of flame into the raven's face.
Rakain didn't mince words. He lunged at the raven in front of him, his fingers snapping and sparking with electrical discharge. His fingers brushed the bird's arm, and there was a loud zapping noise as volts of electricity jumped into the raven's body. It squawked in pain, but wasn't dead yet!
Metal and forcefields repelled the raven's weapon in a shower of spark, and Sam turned the choice on form of her armor to her advantage. A twist of her parrying arm had one of the larger rings catch on the tip of that curved blade, bind it as her armored fist grabbed the edged steel. Her follow up was to snap her own sword free of it's sheathe and with a hard thrust run the raven through.
Nora had elected to take up the rear with her rifle and keep an eye on things from a distance, which came in handy. Shortly after the battle began she had taken aim, waited, then fired. Her drone did as well, and they both struck their targets with the last two Tengu taking a bolt of piercing hot energy to the head. They dropped without ceremony to the ground.
As the tengu thumped to the ground, Ami shook her head. "Flanking attacks rarely work if you don't have surprise...and numbers..." She said, shaking her head slightly.
Xata whisked the blood off her sword with a Samurai Gesture trid-style and sheathed it. "Excellent shooting, Fellow Adventurer," she complimented Nora with a solemn nod.
"Still an easy scrap, though," Rakain said. He turned and gave Nora two thumbs up. "Nice shooting, Nora!"
Hana gave Nora a thumb's up, a slightly expectant look on her face as she bent down to frisk the bodies.
Sam nodded to Ami's comment, going through her normal routine of cleaning her blade, less of a flourish and more wiping it off on something otherwise clean, before returning it to it's sheathe. With that she went about checking the dead.
Nora waved back in return and started marching down, clad in a light environmental suit with the helmet done up to keep her head warm. She wore a heavy pack instead of her usual toolbag.
