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hwebNobody: A thousand words of Indiana Jones Adventure. Remember, buddy – you asked for it :p
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The Cult of the Golden Bars protected its treasures well. The Temple of the Crystal Courtesan resided at the center of a lake of fire, within the caldera of the active volcano locals called Mount Boom. Nearly a full kilometer high, Mount Boom was a massive, broken fortress of basaltic rock, almost entirely unscalable. Only a single path provided any realistic means of traveling up the mountain, and it was buried deep in the Jungle of Trials. The jungle stretched up nearly the full breadth of Mount Boom's slopes, harboring toxic plants, vicious fauna, and the long-hidden village of the savage, cannibalistic tribals known as the Fire People. All who attempted to brave the volcano's challenges vanished, never heard from again. Entire expeditions had been lost without a trace within the all-consuming Jungle of Trials, swallowed up for their hubris in seeking to plunder the Cult's riches.
Cee, of course, skipped the whole damned thing. Why the hell should she put up with all of that mess when all she wanted was the fuckin' TREASURE?! She'd just flown up to the rim of the caldera, leaving the Jungle of Trials and its myriad dire threats impotently behind her.
Next, of course, was the trek across the Sea of Flames, the massive pool of fire and lava which ringed the stone outcropping on which the Temple crouched. A single tortured stone bridge gave access to the temple; riddled with breaks, hidden weaknesses, and cleverly disguised traps, the bridge's best defense was nevertheless none of those. Its best defense was the relentless, fatally overwhelming heat that radiated from the Sea of Flames. No living thing without the protections of the Cult of the Golden Bars and their Courtesan-blessed magics could withstand the inferno that surrounded the Temple. Charred remains scattered across the bridge attested the final resting places of those few hardy souls who'd managed to win their way through the Jungle of Trials, only to be clawed down by this new, fresh Hell.
Cee...of course...wasn't a living thing. Not as the Cult knew it, anyways. It was hot, sure, but still well within her operating temperatures. A little frost ether flowing through her Ceramite-X, a little more spliced into her Ether Field to keep her protoskin from burning off in the heat, and she strolled across the bridge just fine. Powerful sensors easily discerned the locations of both hidden weaknesses and hidden traps, and jumps that had claimed their share of lives held no danger to someone who could frickin' fly. She just walked on across like she was strolling down goddamned Main Street, totally ignoring the insufferable heat and treacherous nature of the Sea of Flames.
That left only the Temple of the Crystal Courtesan itself, and a formidable fortress it was. Built on a massive scale to resist the immense heat of the Sea of Flames, the Temple was home to the Cult of the Golden Bars. Each and every cultist was utterly mad, driven by unbearably intense religious fervor and willing...eager...desperate to give their lives in defense of their Goddess' greatest treasure. They felt no pain, needed neither rest nor food, knew the Temple's every nook and cranny, and each of them bore a golden dagger coated with one of the most powerful paralytic concoctions in the world. A single nick, the tiniest trace of the poison in a man's blood, would seize up his muscles in seconds, afflicting him with agonizing cramps, pulling his every muscle tighter and tighter and tighter...until his heart crushed itself within his chest from the unnatural contraction. Only a single cultist needed to make a single, tiny cut for any intruder to die in torment...and there were over a hundred cultists.
Not that Cee gave a shit. Their toxin was useless against her, their golden blades bending, deforming and breaking against her sub-dermal armor. After the first dozen or so, she didn't even bother to retaliate – she just wandered through the temple, looking for the Treasure Chamber while screaming, frothing-mouthed cultists dashed themselves hopelessly against her armor. It wasn't even fair - those cultists who abandoned their daggers and tried to grapple her only got thrown into walls, and the rest were just kicked out of her way with no more fanfare than if they'd been sacks of potatoes, or beer cans, or fiscal conservatives.
Finally, Cee stood in the massive amphitheater surrounding the High Altar, and there it was – she could see it clear as day. The relic was about eighteen inches high, two fat discs of obsidian forming the roof and floor of a circular cage made up of...well...golden bars. Within the bars, clinging to them with a look of either crazed desperation or one hell of an orgasm on her face, was the Crystal Courtesan herself. She was naked, sculpted as every man's ideal fantasy, with a huge rack and some child-bearing hips connected by a disturbingly tiny wasp waist in an hourglass figure. No, seriously – the Crystal Courtesan was an hourglass, with blood-red sand stored in bulbous hollows inside her considerable bust and equally imposing hips and thighs, trickling through a narrow channel in her waist.
And standing there next to the icon of his Goddess was the High Priest himself, a man in fiery red robes and a huge, ornate mask, bearing a golden staff topped with dozens of charms hung from a woman's skull. He smiled a fierce, ugly smile, leveled the staff, and discharged its blessed magic, the killing bolt that would strip the soul from any living thing and transform it into simply one more mote of red sand within the voluptuous body of the Crystal Courtesan.
Cee blinked as the bolt hit her...then looked up at the High Priest and sneered.
“What, that's all you got? Shit, and this was supposed to be hard.”
The pale-skinned, khaki-clad android strolled up the steps to the Altar of the Crystal Courtesan, ignoring the dumbfounded High Priest as she snatched the relic off its sacred pedestal, examining it curiously. Hell of a thing, this Crystal Hussy here. Lots of ethereal power, just like the legends had all said – it'd have to, given how many trapped souls it contained – but it had barely a quarter of the output of her own Fire of Order, when all was said and done.
“Tch. Disappointing,” Cee muttered, eying the idol with a mildly offended look in her eyes...even as a deep, ominous rumbling sound shook the Temple.
“You will not live to profit from your blasphemy, thief!” the High priest screeched as an absolutely enormous round boulder, at least fifteen tons in weight, crashed through a false wall and rolled swiftly towards Cee, triggered by a simple pressure plate beneath the Courtesan. The High priest would die, too...but it was worth it to see this invader's life snuffed out by the Goddess' final gambit.
...or so he thought, up until Cee drew Gunsmoke with her left hand and fired a single shot at the boulder, blowing it to dust with a blast of explosive ether.
The High priest sank to his knees, wailing in despair. “What are you?! A demon?! A black goddess come to defile Her holy resting place?!”
Cee smirked, a nasty, malignant grin creasing her lips as she swung the barrel of her revolver level with the man's forehead.
Leaning over and giving the Crystal Courtesan an irreverent peck on her strained-looking mineral cheek, Cee said to the man, “Demon...goddess...I'm the bitch with the gun.”
BANG!
___________________________________________________________________________________
The Cult of the Golden Bars protected its treasures well. The Temple of the Crystal Courtesan resided at the center of a lake of fire, within the caldera of the active volcano locals called Mount Boom. Nearly a full kilometer high, Mount Boom was a massive, broken fortress of basaltic rock, almost entirely unscalable. Only a single path provided any realistic means of traveling up the mountain, and it was buried deep in the Jungle of Trials. The jungle stretched up nearly the full breadth of Mount Boom's slopes, harboring toxic plants, vicious fauna, and the long-hidden village of the savage, cannibalistic tribals known as the Fire People. All who attempted to brave the volcano's challenges vanished, never heard from again. Entire expeditions had been lost without a trace within the all-consuming Jungle of Trials, swallowed up for their hubris in seeking to plunder the Cult's riches.
Cee, of course, skipped the whole damned thing. Why the hell should she put up with all of that mess when all she wanted was the fuckin' TREASURE?! She'd just flown up to the rim of the caldera, leaving the Jungle of Trials and its myriad dire threats impotently behind her.
Next, of course, was the trek across the Sea of Flames, the massive pool of fire and lava which ringed the stone outcropping on which the Temple crouched. A single tortured stone bridge gave access to the temple; riddled with breaks, hidden weaknesses, and cleverly disguised traps, the bridge's best defense was nevertheless none of those. Its best defense was the relentless, fatally overwhelming heat that radiated from the Sea of Flames. No living thing without the protections of the Cult of the Golden Bars and their Courtesan-blessed magics could withstand the inferno that surrounded the Temple. Charred remains scattered across the bridge attested the final resting places of those few hardy souls who'd managed to win their way through the Jungle of Trials, only to be clawed down by this new, fresh Hell.
Cee...of course...wasn't a living thing. Not as the Cult knew it, anyways. It was hot, sure, but still well within her operating temperatures. A little frost ether flowing through her Ceramite-X, a little more spliced into her Ether Field to keep her protoskin from burning off in the heat, and she strolled across the bridge just fine. Powerful sensors easily discerned the locations of both hidden weaknesses and hidden traps, and jumps that had claimed their share of lives held no danger to someone who could frickin' fly. She just walked on across like she was strolling down goddamned Main Street, totally ignoring the insufferable heat and treacherous nature of the Sea of Flames.
That left only the Temple of the Crystal Courtesan itself, and a formidable fortress it was. Built on a massive scale to resist the immense heat of the Sea of Flames, the Temple was home to the Cult of the Golden Bars. Each and every cultist was utterly mad, driven by unbearably intense religious fervor and willing...eager...desperate to give their lives in defense of their Goddess' greatest treasure. They felt no pain, needed neither rest nor food, knew the Temple's every nook and cranny, and each of them bore a golden dagger coated with one of the most powerful paralytic concoctions in the world. A single nick, the tiniest trace of the poison in a man's blood, would seize up his muscles in seconds, afflicting him with agonizing cramps, pulling his every muscle tighter and tighter and tighter...until his heart crushed itself within his chest from the unnatural contraction. Only a single cultist needed to make a single, tiny cut for any intruder to die in torment...and there were over a hundred cultists.
Not that Cee gave a shit. Their toxin was useless against her, their golden blades bending, deforming and breaking against her sub-dermal armor. After the first dozen or so, she didn't even bother to retaliate – she just wandered through the temple, looking for the Treasure Chamber while screaming, frothing-mouthed cultists dashed themselves hopelessly against her armor. It wasn't even fair - those cultists who abandoned their daggers and tried to grapple her only got thrown into walls, and the rest were just kicked out of her way with no more fanfare than if they'd been sacks of potatoes, or beer cans, or fiscal conservatives.
Finally, Cee stood in the massive amphitheater surrounding the High Altar, and there it was – she could see it clear as day. The relic was about eighteen inches high, two fat discs of obsidian forming the roof and floor of a circular cage made up of...well...golden bars. Within the bars, clinging to them with a look of either crazed desperation or one hell of an orgasm on her face, was the Crystal Courtesan herself. She was naked, sculpted as every man's ideal fantasy, with a huge rack and some child-bearing hips connected by a disturbingly tiny wasp waist in an hourglass figure. No, seriously – the Crystal Courtesan was an hourglass, with blood-red sand stored in bulbous hollows inside her considerable bust and equally imposing hips and thighs, trickling through a narrow channel in her waist.
And standing there next to the icon of his Goddess was the High Priest himself, a man in fiery red robes and a huge, ornate mask, bearing a golden staff topped with dozens of charms hung from a woman's skull. He smiled a fierce, ugly smile, leveled the staff, and discharged its blessed magic, the killing bolt that would strip the soul from any living thing and transform it into simply one more mote of red sand within the voluptuous body of the Crystal Courtesan.
Cee blinked as the bolt hit her...then looked up at the High Priest and sneered.
“What, that's all you got? Shit, and this was supposed to be hard.”
The pale-skinned, khaki-clad android strolled up the steps to the Altar of the Crystal Courtesan, ignoring the dumbfounded High Priest as she snatched the relic off its sacred pedestal, examining it curiously. Hell of a thing, this Crystal Hussy here. Lots of ethereal power, just like the legends had all said – it'd have to, given how many trapped souls it contained – but it had barely a quarter of the output of her own Fire of Order, when all was said and done.
“Tch. Disappointing,” Cee muttered, eying the idol with a mildly offended look in her eyes...even as a deep, ominous rumbling sound shook the Temple.
“You will not live to profit from your blasphemy, thief!” the High priest screeched as an absolutely enormous round boulder, at least fifteen tons in weight, crashed through a false wall and rolled swiftly towards Cee, triggered by a simple pressure plate beneath the Courtesan. The High priest would die, too...but it was worth it to see this invader's life snuffed out by the Goddess' final gambit.
...or so he thought, up until Cee drew Gunsmoke with her left hand and fired a single shot at the boulder, blowing it to dust with a blast of explosive ether.
The High priest sank to his knees, wailing in despair. “What are you?! A demon?! A black goddess come to defile Her holy resting place?!”
Cee smirked, a nasty, malignant grin creasing her lips as she swung the barrel of her revolver level with the man's forehead.
Leaning over and giving the Crystal Courtesan an irreverent peck on her strained-looking mineral cheek, Cee said to the man, “Demon...goddess...I'm the bitch with the gun.”
BANG!
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Date: 2012-05-28 06:52 am (UTC)