Sobek the Immortal [Closed]

[hi_there_aliens]

Planet Designation: Kalimba Status: Terrestrial, H-class.
Non-sentient life: Extensive flora and fauna.
Semi-Sentient Life: Unknown
Sentient Life: Ruins and step pyramids suggest the presence of intelligent life at some point. Currently: Unknown.
Water: 70.2% of the planet's surface. Heavy rainfall/monsoons.
Climate: Earth-like.
Landscape: Primarily jungle and swamp, some plains, severe arctic conditions in northern and southern poles.
Air: Type I (breathable)
Sky: Blue-green.
Warnings: Medium to high levels of megafauna. Watch your step. Conditions in the atmosphere make several forms of orbital scans and equipment unreliable.
Mission: Archaeological investigation of step pyramids and ruins, investigate for signs of source of abnormal energy signature in target area.

The first thing the group would notice was that Kalimba's air was humid and heavy, with a light breeze. The morning had long since burned off most of the mist, and in the distance, clouds lazily drifted onwards towards the horizon. The typhoon season was a long ways off.

The undergrowth was tangled and dense, seemingly impassable in places. Vibrant flowers and vines took up residence where some of the tree cover faltered. With limited sunlight available, it was every plant for themselves. Disturbed by the archaeology group, "birds", each easily half the size of a person and more salamander than avian suddenly took to the air in a flash of brilliantly colored wings. They were gone almost instantly, slicing through the air and leaving only the ear-splitting shriek behind.

The hill sloped down. The cover of trees broke as they came out onto the stone remains of path that must have once been heavily used. Now, just like everywhere else, massive roots and tanglers tore at the ground, slowly swallowing any signs of civilization back within itself. There were trees of all shapes and sizes as far as the eye could see, a rolling wave of jungle and rainforest. Tan and dirty gray step pyramids, all more massive than those found on Earth, and the occasional obelisk rose through the canopy cover like claws, dotting the landscape.

Stac's scans indicated much of the planet was covered in these structures, with the largest in this location. Aside from the archaeological mission, her scans also indicated the presence of an abnormal power that may be of interest.

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[hi_there_aliens]

[ after this]

His hand lifted, jerkily at first, towards his head. He missed completely the first time, only pulling the largest shard of glass out of his face on the second attempt. The next attempt was easier, smoother. The third was, aside from some trembling from the muscles, practically effortless. The moment the glass was out, the wound began to sluggishly heal. The blood clotted. The skin and muscle itself took a little more. It took more effort to sit up. He sat up, face twisting into a grimace of pain. The movement was clumsy, weak. The spine wasn’t completely healed, but for now, he had enough to move, and he wouldn’t waste the opportunity he had while it was here. All the while, he curled tighter inside the neck, more and more filaments joining the first several in the brain. Breathing, the heart, language and limbs. Impulses and signals fired rapidly.

Scattering coins, he staggered up. Swayed on their feet. Taking control and healing at the same time so rapidly, after thousands of years in stasis, was difficult. The pain from the barely healed injury was intense, blazing amongst the thrill of success, freedom. He clenched his jaw.

He unsteadily made his way out of the room. He had only one destination while he had this window.

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The step pyramid began to hum, a low throb at first. It was barely noticeable, registering at first as ambient noise. It quickly rose into something more like a high pitched whine. The interior and exterior walls of the step pyramids suddenly washed with a faint sickly yellow glow. This glow ran through the ground, snaked its way through tunnels and corridors, before winding its way to the top most point of the building. All across the planet, one after another, a large beam of white light burst from the tops of the structures and pierced the heavens.

Even the jungle seemed stunned into silence. Then something shrieked, faint in the distance. It was a jagged sound, someone crying out, followed by more wails as more voices joined in from the jungle surrounding the step pyramids. More voices took up the call as the alert spread. The wails grew more and more frenzied, excited, and closer with each second.

[syncopath]

It was true. The Master most certainly didn't need Jamie's help. That the brat assumed that was naturally what this must all be about rankled faintly, in that way that most human things did.

He'd noticed the holo bracelet, only made more obvious by Jamie's attempts to conceal it, and decided it was only a matter of time before he discovered for himself just what it was all about. For now, he had just opened his mouth for a retort, something along the lines of why Jamie even thought the Master would let him get far enough to warn anyone, when the humming started.

The Master's head went up, alert, like a dog on point, at the first faint sounds. But his curious expression very quickly changed to annoyance as the sounds increased their volume. By the time the pyramids, and then the sky, began to glow the Master had his hands over his ears.

"What in the name of Rassilon is that?" he snapped at nobody in particular. Certainly not Jamie.

His relief at the cessation of that awful noise-- for the most part-- didn't last all that long. It was soon replaced by that something else. Something alive, and by the sound of it, deranged. Possibly even hungry. The Master poked his head up, hands falling from his ears, looking every which way.

[bonnypiperlad]

Those first faint sounds might have gone unnoticed completely by Jamie, if he hadn't caught sight of the Master's reaction. His brow furrowed for a moment as he tried to figure out why that sudden look of curiosity had appeared - but a few seconds after that made it abundantly clear something had happened. As the alarm increased in volume, he, too, wound up clamping his hands over his ears in a bid to block out the noise. It was only partially successful.

"Why's it glowing like that? What's going on?" he asked, having managed to only wind up blocking out the Master's question instead of the awful sound. But soon it stopped, and he lowered his hands from his ears, visible relief on his face.

The relief was short lived, however, as the eerie response to the call began to make itself known. His hand quickly dropped to where his dirk was kept, loosening the catch drawing the weapon in one smooth motion. His other hand shifted closer to the activation mechanism on the morphers, but he held off on the transformation itself for now. It would only take a few seconds to do so if need be...and if they were very very lucky, maybe he wouldn't have to if they got away from what was pretty clearly a large target.

"Look, let's get out of here before whatever's been attracted by that shows up."

[hi_there_aliens]

It might be too late. The entire jungle was alive with the jubilant, guttural calls, while the shadows in the branches grew thicker as more and more human bodies eagerly crowded around the site. Jamie and the Master were surrounded, and yet, none of the locals made any motion into the clearing. They waited. They watched.

Figures, almost like living statues, stepped out from the jungle line. They wore metal helmets, fashioned in the shape of a twisted, stylized crocodile head with glowing eyes, and every single one of them was muscular and tall, easily towering over the two. They advanced towards them, forming what looked eerily like a firing line, slowly closing in around them like a net. What looked like ceremonial staffs lowered, the head expanding with a discharge of energy, to point at them.

Several broke off and split into groups, heading for the other structures while more trickled out from the undergrowth.

One of the warriors in the decreasing ring stepped forward and barked something harsh at them, then gestured with her staff weapon at them and then at the ground. Language barrier aside, this much was clear.

[syncopath]

The Master hadn't even waited for Jamie to finish his sentence; he was already striding quickly toward the shuttles that had brought the team here. Only to back up again seconds later as the circle closed in, his hands in the air and his eyes fixed on the staff aimed practically up his nose.

He'd never seen these things before, and that was something for a Time Lord. As well as slightly disconcerting. The Master cursed in Gallifreyan. Rassilon-damned alternate universe.

His lip curled when one of the figures barked gestured to the ground, even as his ears were eagerly taking in all the nuances of the language, still trying to place them (was it some variant of Sarkeptian? No. Vol'x, perhaps?)

"You want us to kneel?" he drawled bitterly. The Master had no desire to be killed here and now by these things, but he had to draw the line somewhere.

[bonnypiperlad]

A curse was a curse in any language, but for some reason Jamie was finding it hard to pick up on the specifics of what the warriors were saying, but he wasn't sure why. Something was wrong with the translator crystals, maybe. Or whatever it was the TARDIS did that could make you understand what other people were saying, which was a rather big problem given the situation.

Those gestures, though, those he thought he understood - and it wasn't necessarily what the Master thought it was. Although he could be wrong. It was a chance he'd have to take.

"They mean for us to throw down our weapons," he replies, biting back the urge to add something disparaging in Gaelic. It'd be his luck for the Master to understand it if he did. And while it galled Jamie to have to do so, one look at the clearing made it pretty clear they were surrounded, and not in any position to try and fight their way free...not yet.

Slowly he set his dirk down on the ground and took a step back. Not too far, lest the warriors thought he was making a run for it. But enough that they would know he'd not mean to pick it up and do them harm with it. At the same time he stepped back he brought up his hands in what he hoped was a universal gesture of surrender - but he didn't take off the morphers. Hopefully they'd think they were just some fancy bracers and not bother with them, and they'd have an easier time making a break for it later on.

[syncopath]

Oh. Well, in that case. The Master flashed a fake grin.

"Sorry, don't have any." He spread his arms. "I'm a pacifist."

Even if they ran across the laser screwdriver, secured in one of his suit jacket's inner pockets, the isomorphic controls would stop them from actually seeing what it did... and maybe, just maybe they'd make the mistake of letting him keep it.

[hi_there_aliens]

Jamie's guess was correct. The woman stepped forward. The circle around them kept their weapon trained on them both at all times as she knelt to retrieve the dirk. The blade vanished, stowed away on her person, then she began to pat Jamie down thoroughly. The morphers and omnicomm was removed.

The Master's fake grin hadn't won him any points with the guard. When it was his turn, he'd find himself treated even worse, roughly pat down and turned like he was more of a piece of meat being inspected and handled than a living being. The omnicomm and, after studying the device for a lengthy minute, laser screwdriver was removed as well.

Another guard stepped forward and went to work restraining the prisoners.