13. The Pyramid

The margr village destroyed, all that remains of the margr stronghold is the pyramid and Ironhorn firmly entrenched inside. They know the margr is augmented with other world devices, but what they are doing in there is anyone’s guess.
 
 
 
“We’re invading this spaceship...we’re space invading!” Marius enthused as the group walked up the swaying vine bridge to the floating island. Nox was silent, barely perceptible behind the bulk of Fureva-Yung. Jaden grinned and resettled her glowing spear in her arms. Fureva-Yung said nothing.
 
As the group climbed, the bridge swung away from land, and they found themselves surrounded by open air. Marius’ fine-tuned senses listened out for the sounds of talking from the pyramid. Instead, the wind brought a low whine and chop, chop, chop sound from towers halfway up the pyramid’s vertices and cracking like that of bones from inside.
 
Halfway across the bridge, the group's eyes fixed on two channels cut into the rock on each side of the doorway. A glowing green gas had suddenly started flowing down the channels out of the pyramid and into the air below. As it hit the open air, the gas thinned and dissipated before reaching the ground. From behind Fureva-Yung, Nox focused her thoughts on the gas as it spilled out into the air. As they climbed up the last stretch of the shaking bridge, she reached out with her mind and found nothing. They could see it reacting with the air around it, but to Nox, it was like it was not physically there…at least not in this world. She strained to understand something and found a resonance with the energies of her own body. It was a life force, the energy of life made physical. She let the others know what she’d deduced.
“I wonder who they're crushing in there to make that life goop,” Marius murmured as they finally entered the pyramid's shadow and walked inside.
 
The first room was not as dark as they’d feared. It was dominated by a clear cylinder that ran from floor to ceiling that glowed with the green of the gas. Inside the tube, however, the gas was condensed, thicker and almost liquid. Through the green opacity, a figure loomed darkly. Seven-foot tall, with a goat's head, the being was impressively built, solid and clean-limbed. As the gas moved and boiled around the figure, a deep wound in its side revealed and obscured. This was NOT Ironhorn.
 
“Hey, kid. What’s this tube made of?” Marius asked as the group spread out through the room.
Nox scanned the tube and was surprised at the density of its crystalline structure.
“A carbon-based crystal, very dense and strong,” She told him, shrugging.
“Diamond?” He replied and looked back at the tall majesty goat-man with new respect, “I wonder who this guy is?”
“Margr god? I’ve never seen a margr as fit as this one,” Jaden mused, poking around the cylinder. In truth, none of them had. Margr, by their natures, were mongrel collections of human and goat, none resembling the other. Indeed none were as impressive as the individual in the cylinder.
 
Curious as to who he was, Nox touched a sleeping mind still reliving moments from their life. Flashes of a battle, being heavily wounded and retreating to this place for healing. In the dreams, the being showed an explicit knowledge of the technology that made the pyramid and cylinder inside.
“He is really smart. He knew what this stuff was for and how to use it,” She told the others. Fureva-Yung tapped on the cylinder, and when she received no response, she sniffed and moved on. Behind the cylinder, two paths split away, one going right and one left. She headed down the left passage.
 
Having failed to find a control panel for the cylinder, Jaden turned her attention to the green gas flowing down the channels from a floor above. The green gas seemed heavier than air, though Nox had confessed she could not touch it with her Hedge Magic.
“It doesn’t look out of phase,” Jaden said, dipping her hand into the stream. Suddenly something tugged at Jaden, and though the sensation was at her hand, it wasn’t her limb that was caught. Pulling away, it felt like part of her soul was torn, and a ghostly Jaden formed amongst them. Paler and older looking than she had a moment before, Jaden swiped out at the apparition with her light spear. It passed through effortlessly but seemingly did some damage as the apparition flinched.
“Are we supposed to fight that?” Marius asked, standing with his sword in hand but unwilling to hurt the new ghostly Jaden, “Isn’t that you?”
“It looks like me, but isn’t me,” Jaden replied weakly, gravely injured by her tear to her being.
“Urgh, do you need this thing back?”
 
Jaden didn’t get to respond as the ghostly Jaden screamed a sorrowful high-pitched wail. Fureva-Yung clutched her head, swayed and fell to her knees as the scream drilled into her mind, tearing at her ability to think. Breathing heavily, she gathered herself and stood, but she no longer looked as fierce as she once did. Instead, tiredness weighed her limbs down, and she didn’t move with as much energy as she had a moment before.
 
A spark of desperate inspiration came to Nox, and she reached out her mind to touch the ghost’s. Instantly, the creature grasped the link, thinking of possessing Nox. Instead, through a subtle movement of her thought, Nox manoeuvred her connection with Jaden to the forefront. Corralled, the creature had no choice but to return to Jaden. The apparition disappeared, and Jaden took a deep breath and felt more herself.
"Are you okay?” Nox asked Jaden. The older woman smiled and nodded.
“I’ll be fine,” She replied enigmatically.
“Are you, you?” Marius asked Jaden, wondering what was now in control of their artificer.
“A question I’m not sure of most days,” Jaden replied, and Marius grinned.
“That’s Jaden. “ Fureva-Yung still held her head in her hands, and for all of Jaden's bravado, she had more grey in her ginger hair. Even Nox was looking wrung out.
“Should we think about leaving and coming back after a good rest?”
“Another day the other group has to move further away? Another day Ironhorn has to prepare?”
Fureva-Yung said nothing but squared her shoulders and started down the left-hand path.
 
The passage snaked around the lower floor, dodging past unseen obstacles in the walls. They passed three egg-shaped alcoves, two with missing doors. Inside, decomposing margr hung lifeless. Battle wounds scarred their bodies. One looked like they’d dragged themselves there only to die before getting into place.
“It looks like they went into these alcoves to heal,” Nox said. Fureva-Yung picked up one of the bodies and shook it. In its deteriorated state, it didn’t take much of Fureva-Yung’s rough handling for the head to disconnect from the body and roll away.
 
As Jaden looked for signs of movement in the dust on the ground, Marius stood and asked a question to himself.
The big guy back there. Is that something we want to destroy?
No, Came back the simple and emphatic reply. Nodding his regard for the being that once owned all of this, he turned and followed Jaden up a set of stairs to the next level.
 
They passed a set of finely made statues formed out of a manufactured chitinous material. One of the statues was another of the noble margr, this one wearing a robe. The other had been destroyed by the passing of something on the stairs. Fureva-Yung picked up a piece of the material, crunching it to powder between her massive jaws. To her, it felt gritty, tasting strongly of mushroom.
 

 
The stairs emptied into a small hallway that turned left and ended in a large, irregularly shaped room. Green gas flowed thickly through channels across the floor. Fureva-Yung, Marius and Nox hopped over the channel towards a domed machine held down by four pillars.
 
“Beautiful isn’t it,” Marius said, staring at the clean, smooth lines of the machines.
“Beautiful,” Nox echoed. To her, it was as much a piece of art as the sculptures on the landing. She gazed upon it trying to discern its purpose.
“We could pull it apart of all sorts of bits and pieces,” Marius added, betraying his real love and Nox looked at him horrified. Marius took a second look at the thing, but for the life of him, he couldn’t see what Nox saw in the contraption they found. He did, however, find a scrape of the same chitinous material along one side of the dome.
“Well, it looks like it's been operational recently,” He said, wiping away the dust, “Hey shiny, you seem to have a scuff here.” As he rose, a ghostly something moved past his vision into the machine. Jaden’s spirit hadn’t given up on causing mischief . As Jaden came up behind Nox and Marius, it once more left Jaden. The machine activated, and the dome rose, unfolding six insect-like legs. From above the dome, the head and shoulders of ghost-Jaden peaked out.
 
“What is this wretched thing?!” Jaden exclaimed, and Nox and her silently put together what they had gathered from their interactions with the gas and ghost. Jaden was sure it was part of herself causing this trouble. And though she wasn’t above a little mischief of her own, she felt that the ghost was a tainted version of her personality. The discarded gas seemed to be the unwanted elements from a process further in the pyramid. Unwanted elements that were now embedded into her ghostly doppelganger.
“I think that gas was a waste product from making the good thick life-preserving stuff,” She said, and Nox made a face in disgust.
You put her hand in waste?
Jaden ignored Nox’s comment and knocked on the dome in front of them.
“It’s polite for hitchhikers to say hello at least, “ She complained. The ghostly Jaden did not respond.
 
Nox now moved around the machine, looking for a control panel or interface. She was sure if she could find its controls, she could purge the ghostly Jaden from the system. She connected with the machine, making it buck like a wild creature. Ghostly Jaden was tossed about inside the machine, desperately holding control against the girl.
 
“This looks like it needs an exorcism,” Marius commented, thinking for a moment, “Luckily, I happen to know how to do that. Does anyone have a candle, a bell and a book?” He looked to Jaden, who pointed to Bellyache standing behind her.
“See for yourself.”
 
Marius scrambled through the parts. Jaden suggested a piece of biocircutry and two fragments of iotum
“Nox, can you focus a spark of your magic into this candle,”
“It doesn’t hurt. I tried before, I couldn’t hurt the root monster,” Nox replied almost apologetically.
“It will be just what is needed,” He said, taking up Nox’s Book of Numenera in the crook of his arm, the candle in his left hand. As Nox let a spark play amongst the random pieces of tech, he struck the dome with the back of his sword, making the automaton ring like a bell.
“Out! Out Damned thing!” He roared at ghost-Jaden with the conviction of an exorcising priest. Like it had been struck by a physical force, ghost-Jaden was thrown back out of the dome of the automaton. As soon as the spirit was free, Jaden threw her light spear, hoping to pin the mischievous creature to the wall. Instead, the spear missed, and the green wisp escaped through the same solid wall.
“We’re going to have problems with that one,” Marius sighed, putting out the last of the candle as Nox gained control of the automaton. The legs of the robot bent, making stairs that Nox climbed to sit on top. The ragged, pale and injured urchin smiled a self-satisfied smile from on top of her new pet.
 
“He is Guardian. He’s sorry he can’t go with us outside the pyramid, but he’s staying with us for a little while.”

 
 

 
They moved through a connecting room where the crystal cylinder from the floor below continued through and out the ceiling, and into the third room with a grisly sight. In a square chamber stood four pillars made of smooth black steel. Chained to the pillars were the bodies of two skeletons. One was a malformed, goat-headed margr, the tattered remains of furs covering the asymmetrical skeleton. Marius investigated the other in what was left of a militia uniform. They looked years dead, though Marius could not determine how they’d died. Directly above the skeletons, the ceiling was grated. There was some discussion about whether the space was used to drain the life force that made the green gas. Without more evidence, it was just guesswork, so the group moved on.
 
A short passageway led either right, up another flight of steps, or straight ahead into another room. This room was set around with semicircular alcoves like the ones found downstairs. At the far end, the room was dominated by a large pile of broken machinery. It looked scavenged for pieces for experiments or as replacements further in the pyramid. Marius licked his lips at the thought of scrounging through the pile until his and the party’s eyes rested on the bodies left around the space. Two margr, or at least the pieces of two, were cut and shunted with mechanical parts and vials of the green gas. Nearby another decaying human body in similar condition lay slumped on the floor like a forgotten doll. The tinkling of Jaden’s chuckle echoed through the room as the floor began to glow green. The bodies began to move, missing body parts filled in by ghostly green replacements.
 
“Yung Smoosh!” Fureva-Yung roared. Stirred up in her bestial form, she had stalked impatiently from room to room for something to kill. Before the margr had raised itself from the ground, Freva-Yung’s chain swung round, whipping the meat puppet in half and denting the wall behind with the force of the strike. Green splattered the wall before dissipating into vapour. The second margr did make it to its two mismatched feet and lunged towards Nox on her Guardian. Mindllinked, the Guardian sidestepped the attack, swinging back with a mechanical crab-like leg. The human undead creation shambled after Fureva-Yung, slamming into her from behind. The green living essence rubbed onto her, and she suddenly didn’t feel so well. Following Fureva-Yung’s example, the Guardian now raised a leg and brought it down on the margr. Nox, from her perch, crowed and cheered, echoing the robot’s movements with her own, “Nox, Smoosh!”
 
From behind, Marius stabbed the margr and hit armour as Fureva-Yung swung a mighty fist and smacked the human aside. Marius noted the green on Fureva-Yung growing up her arm but couldn’t stop as Jaden’s spear reached through to attack the margr.
“Better watch out for the green stuff,” He called, and the next rounds of attack on the creatures were more tentative as no one wanted more to do with the green gas. Fureva-Yung, however, was already feeling unwell. She could feel something ripping away, and she clutched her torso in an attempt to hold whatever it was in. Whatever she did, it seemed to partially work. The tearing eased, and she felt more herself as a ghostly green Fureva-Yung stepped out from her body and looked at her curiously.
 
Nox moaned as she saw the latest ghost appear. She and Guardian tried to beat the ghost back into Fureva-Yung with heavy clawed legs. Jaden, at her side whipped her spear around from the margr now falling to pieces under Marius’ blade to the spin round and slap the human with her spear-tip. The ghost-Yung roared, and all eyes turned to the two Yungs. Fureva-Yung stood breathing heavily, blood trickling from her ears and eyes. The ghost-Yung looked ready to fight. Marius attacked the human and smashed a vial of green goop, its contents splashing it all over himself.
“Urgh! That’s vile!” He said, using the blade of his short-sword to scrape the goo off.
“Hold still!” Jaden complained as she pulled on an io and snapped it in half towards Marius. The force of the explosion blasted the remaining green off Marius’ arm, ensuring, at least for now, there would not be a third ghost to harass them.
 
Fureva-Yung turned to face her ghostly self and slammed her chain through its vaporous form. The ghost tore for a moment before reforming to strike back. It reared up, both hands above its head, its hands clenched into a single bludgeoning weapon. As its arms swung down, two small green hands reached through the floor and dragged the ghost-Yung down and out of sight.
 
Suddenly the room was quiet except for Fureva-Yung’s heavy breathing and the quiet breath-like exhalation of the Guardian’s hydraulics. They needed to rest, or this place would kill them all. Before leaving, Marius dug around in the refuse pile and found a few spare parts for Bellyache.