Angel headtilts at Joe. "Do you mean you guys aren't carefully selected?"

Murphy says, "Well... yes and no. Joe here likes to say things in a way that make them more amusing. Technically, we're all carefully considered if you count all the numbers crunching and coincidences involved in us being found and selected. But the reality is that Dominus doesn't have the time to carefully select us; it's more like he is presented options and he picks the one he likes best at that time."

Larry says, "Keep that in mind, young lady. We are elite, there is no question about that. But that doesn't mean we are the absolute best around. So when we're up against, say, any of the elite teams who work for the Eternity Lords? Do NOT underestimate them. That's how one of the Galaxy Initiative wound up dead ten years ago."

Larry then looks at Pyrus. "Assuming we even figure out how to 'activate' it. Assuming it even IS a thing that 'activates'. It might be a powersource or a piece to something for all we know. I say if it can be activated, leave figuring out its activation to Joe and Murphy, and only if we either really need to, or our curiosity exceeds our self-preservation instincts."

Angel then looks at Pyrus. "I can explain the desire to be in charge if you want. But it almost sounds like you would rather not know."

Pyrus rolls his eyes at mention of PR.  More of that political stuff he wants to stay far away from.  Well...  Except that he doesn't mind that the reputation of Dominus' Lava Dragon has been greatly exaggerated.  "Ripped open a starship and devoured the reactor core!" while technically true, doesn't tell the real story that it was a tiny starship rusting in a junkyard and it took quite a while to finally get at the core.  If he were a member of the team back then, well, Pyrus wouldn't have needed to stoop to dumpster diving in the first place, but even if he did, his new team mates woulda popped that ship open like a tin can in less than half the time.

Pyrus shrugs.  "All I know for sure is that it looks very tasty.  And the last I heard of someone devouring some legendary heart it was a mythological god of mischief who wound up daddy to a beast of the end times.  So I'm doubly tempted to have a nibble."

He thinks on Angel's offer and answers.  "I don't see why knowing would bother me.  Especially since it means hearing more of your nice voice.

"...Not that I mind the guy's voices.  They all sound so cool!  Larry sounds like thunder, Murphy sounds like fire, and Joe sounds like the ocean."

So the elemental is a tad predisposed to think in terms of the elements.  What of it?

"Your voice is more like...  The cosmos is talking to me."
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:27, Mon 18 Nov 2019.

  Technically, it was a long stretch towards self deprecation over the fact Joe himself was put on Team Fancy Pants Pirates. Therefore, clearly Dominus must have low standards they are trying to bring back up by picking Angel.

 After all, Space > Ocean, duh.

  "Please do not deliberately cause an apocalypse, Pyrus" it may be beyond hope if it comes to accidental doomsdays from natural disaster dragons.

Angel gives Pyrus a chuckle. She doesn't take his comments about the end times seriously. His comment on her voice has more impact. "Cosmos as an element... hmm..."

She then says, "Well to explain why people want to be in charge, I have two explanations.: Everyone wants something. Some people want one thing. Others want many things. People who want to be in charge usually see it as a means to have all the things they want. Second explanation for why people want to be in charge is that they hate when they don't have control over things. For example: Imagine if one day, you were not the one controlling your body, but instead, somebody else did. That feeling of powerlessness causes people to strive for power and control. That's just two potential motives for wanting to be in charge. There are others, but those are the two that make the most sense to me, anyway."

Pyrus wears an innocent look in response to Joe, nibbles his lower lip, shrugs, and answers, "As the song says, 'It's better not leaving temptation around.'  Better chances if I'm not left alone with it is all I'm saying."

He smiles to hear Space Bunny's laugh again.  He head-tilts and looks at the ceiling while considering her explanation then answers with that sing-song tone that kids use when answering, "I give up," after being told, "You'll understand when you're older," "Oh I dunno.  I guess I can kinda see some draw.  But still seems to me like all the reasons put together isn't worth the all drawbacks.  If I had a pebble for every time I've heard Dominus says, 'There's something I must do,' I'd be the size of a mountain by now.  Too busy to have fun!

"Then there's all the coup attempts, the heroes trying to kill you for the achievement, the time and effort setting up your defenses only for them to be ignored because of some exploit, stupidly bad luck, (or stupidly lucky enemies,) the whiny minions, the mental illness that makes you trust those dumb minions to deal with your enemies for some reason while you deal with something less important personally, or repeating the same tactic over and over in a fight regardless of whether it works or is the one thing that allows you to take damage, or forgetting that you have super tech that can easily solve your problem...  'Stupid Ball,' I think it's called?

"Yeah.  Seems to me like being a boss is way overrated."
This message was last edited by the GM at 01:31, Mon 25 Nov 2019.

  Joe lives every day with a Narrator controlling his body and it's worked out mostly okay so far. But Angel probably wasn't referring to something both so literal, and meta, at the same time as power gamers muscling in on your narration territory.

  "Dominus works harder at keeping their title than most, at least." After all, most complain they are surrounded by incompetents for their problems.  While Team Rocket The Galaxy Imperative's current job is because even 'NOT incompetent' leaves messes to clean up.

Larry says, "Don't worry, Pyrus. We'll give you all the tasty rocks you want or whatever, but this one will not ever touch your paws."

Murphy says, "Stupid Ball is an everyone game, Pyrus. Like desiring to eat something so badly that you don't care it would be the last thing you ever experience. That makes all the objections you made sound like a breeze."

Angel shrugs. "There you go, Pyrus, everyone has something they like. For some like Dominus, it's being in charge. For others like Murphy, it's survival. For others like you, it's how tasty the rock is. It's just a matter of how much work or frustration you are willing to put up with to have the thing you like."

"I'll be happy just to NOT be that guy that Dominus is talking about when he complains about being surrounded by idiots."

Pyrus pouts at being accused of stupid and counters, "Having an fatal flaw isn't the same as the stupid ball.  I've warned you about my Achilles heel.  Larry knows to keep the Kryptonite away from me.  Problem solved."

Angel's point seems to turn Pyrus's fatal flaw into something more like a motivation, and he slowly nods while processing it.  "Well when you put it that way...  Wow.  It all makes sense now."

  Some cliches are not quite as expected. For example, it is the Lion using the dangerous amounts of explosive traps instead of the Coyote (usually).  Meanwhile, some prove true as the Bunny plays up the carrot for the 'carrot and stick' metaphors.

  "Well that should be simple enough Pyrus.  Just don't decide the work and frustration you want is to eat the thing your boss wants."

Murphy shrugs. "Guesso."

Larry says, "Alright guys and gal. We're coming in. Brace yourselves."

Planet Morose has a lot of space debri around it. It is the first deterrent to visiting the world, and is enough to keep most would-be explorers from going to the planet's surface.

The ship "Star Warrior" is equipped with some forcefield generators that withstand both energy attacks and kinetic impacts quite well. Still, with as hard as the debri field hits, the ship shakes a few times.

After a few minutes, the ship enters atmo and then lands. The area is as barren as expected, looking much like a rock desert.

http://famouswonders.com/wp-co...er-view-of-petra.jpg

The atmo is safe, though, so no space suits required.

Larry holds up some gas masks. "We might need these once we get inside the building. Keep your scanners on."

Angel nods and takes one of the gas masks while quietly following the group.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:36, Mon 02 Dec 2019.

Pyrus nodded to Joe and says with a sigh, "Yeah.  Pretty much the main reason I'm asking to be kept from the temptation is that."

Upon arriving he smiles.  "Oooh.  Pretty sandstone.  Wonder if it's a feldspathic arenite."

Pyrus tastes a stray pebble.  "Nope.  Quartz.  Must be mostly pretty decent weather 'round here judging from the lack of erosion.  Unless this place isn't all that ancient after all."

He takes a more quadrupedal posture and sniffs around.  Not that his sense of smell is any better than anyone else on the team, just that he tends to be less adverse to putting his nose to the ground and sniffing at dusty rocks.

  Joe may not look it (which is part of the point) but he's all set to survive being ejected out an airlock, let alone something gas masks can deal with.  Still, physical backup options are always good to have.  "Thanks, Larry." he comments, as he gives it a once over just to be sure.

  At Pyrus's commentary, he adds "Places qualifying as 'ruins' seem to linger better than most, regardless of when they were built."

Larry shrugs. "Gasmasks. Weapons ready. And in we go." he puts his gas mask on, pulls out his pulse rifle, and walks in.

Murphy follows suit, though his weapon is apparently a laser rifle / staff. So while it looks like a standard scifi staff*, it can fire lasers out one end as if it were a laser rifle.

* https://bw-1651cf0d2f737d7adea...8976/image_78976.jpg

Angel puts on her gas mask and then draws two laser pistols.

Inside, the group can see stairs that lead up, but also hallways that lead elsewhere. Larry looks around, pulls down a pair of goggles and says, "They explored both pathways. Guess we're going to have to do that as well."

Murphy says, "I'd prefer to go high and work our way down. That way, most of our work will not be tiring since we'll be going downward."

Larry pauses. "Good point. Let's make our way up then."

Upstairs, places like this are found:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/media...09399.jpg?1418846978

The decorations are more obviously from the advance team that has gone missing.

A Scifi gasmask fills more roles than just filtering the air.  Such as muting your voice to the enemy while still transmitting it perfectly clearly to the others in the team.  Which is part of why Pyrus has one and puts it on.  But since he still wants to use his sniffer and poisonous gasses don't bother him, he doesn't have a filter installed.

No objection at all to Larry taking the lead.  Being the team tank stings, so Pyrus is always happy to not have to take point.  Once in the mystery room, Pyrus checks for a WiFi signal that the advance team mighta set up to network their devices.  Also looks the room over for devices left behind.  Maybe he can find a log that'll clue the team in on what to look out for.  Last entry: "We should never have dug so deep!  Drums!  Drums!  They're coming for us!  This will probably be my last-  AAaaaargh!"

Scifi log entries are usually audio files or grainy audio-video files that keep you from seeing what actually killed the victim.

"Heart of Stone...  Anyone ever heard of an ancient Liver of Stone?  Lung?  These relics are always hearts for some reason."

  "We could attempt to call them directly, even a corpse has a com.  Though we still do not know if they have are simply missing, or captured."  Or driven mad by ancient bullshit, that's always annoying.

Angel looks to Pyrus and answers, "In standard culture, the heart is considered the center of emotions or of the soul."

Larry says, "Actually, Angel, if you go back far enough, the liver was considered the seat of your lifeforce. So I wouldn't be surprised if we DO wind up hearing about a Liver of Stone at some point."

Angel says, "Huh. How about that. Then I suppose either this people were forward-thinkers, or not as ancient as what you're talking about."

Pyrus does find a log and the last entry records pictures of the Heart of Stone (including 3D-scan holo pictures that were sent to Dominus) and a log about checking how to remove the heart without setting anything off. No sudden args. Just simply no more logs after that. Sorry, standard drama, make way for suspense drama.

Useful enough, though, the log also includes the location of the heart so the group now knows which way to go to get to it.

Murphy nods to Joe and attempts to com one of the people. No response and none of the group can hear Murphy's voice in the distance, so the com is either off, blocked from audio range or blocked from signal range.

"I think I have two centers of emotion.  My face and my tail."

Pyrus of course shares what he's learned with the team.  He thinks better of pranking his friends by making it look like he can rip out his own heart.  Enough lectures about taking these missions seriously have taught him that timing is important for humor.

"Well unless their mobile devices were all destroyed or taken out of range, I should be able to find them.  I doubt they would have thought they had reason to stealth their own signals before disappearing."

Signal locator is activated.  Direction and signal strength of any active wireless computers will be indicated and shared with the team.

  Well clearly if that were true, then ancient dwarves would focus on the liver because they need it more than their heart for drinking.  No blood means no blood alcohol poisoning, duh!  Except ancient dwarves are written by modern humans, so heart symbolism it is.

  "I know it sounds childish, but as usual do not violate the buddy system unless we have to.  Granted, we have to very often." Now, TECHNICALLY It's easier for Joe to sneak around with Pyrus with him, in the sense everyone will be paying extra attention to Not Joe.  But it's of little surprise Joe often has to leave the lava boy unsupervised on missions.

When Pyrus mentions emotion in the tail, Angel's tail involuntarily twitches.

Larry says, "Not childish at all. That said, I say we stick together completely. Not splitting us up at all just yet. Let's go where Pyrus found those signals before we mess with the Heart. This team had reason to believe they couldn't just simply remove it, so we should find out why they haven't been answering coms."

Murphy says, "Let's approach slowly. I'll be looking for any traps as we go."

Fast-forwarding a little, the group finds the bodies of the advance team. They do not have a mark on them and look like they simply relaxed and then died in their sleep. The room they are in is relatively small, only 15x15 feet. It looks similar to a sauna, but made of stone and missing any water/steam.

Pyrus doesn't get why "buddy system" sounds childish and is glad that Larry upheld that it's a good idea.  His tail wags along with Angels', though probably much more noticeably.

At the room, Pyrus sniffs around.  "I'm guessing undetectable poison.  Either in the air or the food.  'Cause if they were sick, they probably woulda had a chance to call for a medic.  Unless they died of the fastest lethal disease in the history of the universe."

He doesn't mention why he ruled out violence 'cause he doesn't want to get a "Well DUH," from the team.

"Maybe they're still alive."

Pyrus checks for signs of life.

"This sure is a weird room.  What kinda ancient builder makes a useless room like this?  It's like the kind you only find in low-graphics FPSs."

  "Just so long as we work out how to not all die together in the process like this team, Angel." Well, at least they don't have to rescue them anymore?

  He comments to Pyrus "Like you are expecting, it is probably a room meant to kill people. Which both means it isn't pointless, and is also right at home in an FPS"

The bodies do not have gas masks on, but according to the equipment the group has, there is no sign of poison in the air. All the same, Larry says nothing about removing masks.

Angel suspects Joe directed that particular precaution at her because she's new to the team, so she simply nods to him with a smile.

What Pyrus finds when checking the bodies is interesting... they are warm to the touch, not stiff, and even have heartbeats.

A stone golem "transforms" out of the wall in the room. It has a deep, robot-like voice and asks, "I am Helper. Who are you?"

Angel answers, "I'm Angel. This is Larry, Murphy, Joe and Pyrus."

Helper says, "Good. Why are you here?"

Angel pauses. Larry ponders. Larry says, "To learn about the Heart of Stone."

Helper looks around at the others. Murphy remains quiet.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:29, Thu 02 Jan 2020.

Well yeah.  The purpose of death chambers are to kill you, sure.  But Pyrus was referring to those weird rooms that seem to serve no function.  Were the devs going to put some lootables in there and forgot?  Was it going to be a spawn point?  Neither of those would make sense here.  Unless this ancient civilization was big into augmented reality paintball games.  Come to think of it, that would be AWESOME!

Pyrus gasps!  "They're alive!"

While trying to wake them, his eyes go wide at the appearance of the golem.  When things don't get immediately violent, he discreetly stops reaching for his grenades.

"Um...  We're also rescuers.  And these people need rescued.  Why are you here, Helper?"

  Joe is very glad he didn't attempt to just zip through the room without touching any surfaces.  Trusting your mobility tends to not really hold up to when the building itself is mobile.

  "What do you want, or the closest thing to it, Helper?" It's all well and good living in a crushed spirits pirate empire when they are in charge, but SOME people have to the hassle of repeating questions to 'I don't want anything, I live to serve! Types.

Helper says, "I am here to help and guard the Neylor and their temple. It is my duty and what I was built for. The people before you are healthy for now. If you are here to take them away and out of this temple, you are welcome to."

Larry says, "Good to know.. getting them out of here was our intention."

Angel is examining the golem while trying not to look amazed at its appearance.