Rock Me Asmodeus

Posted on Thu Jan 3rd, 2019 @ 2:21am by Commander Rita Paris & Lieutenant Commander Sonak & Lieutenant Asa Dael & Death & Baroness 2nd Class Schwein von Alcott
Edited on on Sun Feb 3rd, 2019 @ 1:09pm

Mission: Escaped Pantheons
Location: Worldship, Temple of Summoning
Timeline: 2395, New Year's Eve, during the celestial alignment under a blood moon

"Commander Paris to Lieutenant Dael and Baroness von Alcott... good timing."

The sight of familiar faces opposite the summoning chamber Rita Paris and Sonak had found at the bottom of the Dante-esque descent into the bowels of hell was both welcome and worrisome. This couldn't be a coincidence, the throwback officer realized. The chanting changed it's tune though, and suddenly the drumline learned a new tempo as the pace picked up and an urgency began to fill the air.

As all of the diminutive robed and hooded figures moved about in some sort of ritual, their own forms forming additional circles beyond those inscribed in the floor, and the scent of ozone and sulphur filled the air.

Schwein tapped her comm device at her neck. "Baroness here. Good to hear your voice, Commander. We are being led by a Flumia to..."

The Flumia interrupted Shwein with a glare and a sharp tone. "Enough talk with your magical voices, mortal! You'll see them soon enough!"

As they got closer, the eight meter tall stones started glowing with a circuit layout in red, adding even more to the ominous air of the demonic temple. These stones were definitely more than just stone, but what exactly they were was beyond what Schwein's cybernetic eye could scan.

"Your repeated warning of caution is well taken, Mister Sonak. What now, keep playing out this tableau to look for our moment to make a difference?" Paris asked, keeping the comm line open with the Baroness.

The Vulcan's brow, devoid of any sweat despite the ambient heat, furrowed slightly.

"I see two options to get out of this immediate situation."

He pointed to the physical arrangement of the whole place.

"One; according to superstition, if we disrupt this pentagram symbol, the summoning becomes unsafe for the summoners. It's intent is to trap the being and it's power inside because summoned powerful entities do not as a rule take kindly to those who dare force them to come. If we make but even a small dent in one of those lines, they would not dare attempt the ritual; if they did, this Asmodeus would first come down on them. A phaser shot would suffice to break one of those lines."

He then looked at his mate, grey eyes unflinching.

"Two; Asmodeus is, again according to myth, a demon of destruction. His domain is that of lies, mistakes and dissipation and would be in Hell the superintendent of game houses. These are possibly angles that could be exploited with our worshipers here... before they implement their ritual."

“I don’t think they are particularly interested in controlling this being so much as summoning them and seeing what happens. Seems like a million years of this fishbowl existence has left them a bit blasé to personal danger,” the out-of-her-depth executive officer offered. “As for angles before the ritual reaches completion, I am all ears. Baroness, Doctor, anything to add from your investigations?

With a thoughtful look, Dael took in the room. "Asmodeus is perhaps a better match than you think, Lieutenant. Deception was used in bringing us here, and it was indicated that these elfin beings have killed before, albeit perhaps with cause. He may view them as kindred spirits if freed, and in any case, allowing the summoning to complete has disaster written all over it. He cannot rise, the aftermath of such a creature being on our plane of existence would be catastrophic. Of course, we are to be sacrificed if he is to be summoned, so our very lives should stop that, yes? Are we able to beam out? If the Hera and all her peoples leave, we can stop the summoning for now, at least until we have a better plan?"

As Schwein, Asa, and Death were ushered out of the tunnel leading to the underground summoning chamber, a fifteen foot tall demon with bat wings and a bull head and legs materialized near them with a puff of fire and the smell of sulphur and brimstone. "Hmm... Yes... Their blood will do nicely to bring my Lord into your plane of existence." Leaning in closer to the two, he poked one clawed finger at Schwein. "I am Haagenti. And no, my presence blocks your teleportation devices. You will not be escaping. Your choices are to be sacrificed willingly... Or unwillingly..."

Throwing back his head, Haagenti laughed demonically as he moved to inspect the summoning circle, a leather bound book appearing in his hand in a similar fashion to how he had appeared a moment before. His laughter seemed to spur the cultish elfin peoples on, chanting louder and faster, the energy in the room growing seemingly more dangerous to the point even the lava looked like it was more excited.

“Let’s bear that option in mind- Hera theoretically has transporter locks on us and is prepared to beam us out. But I’d rather make certain this doesn’t come to pass- the ‘gods’ and beings who are summoned here are making their way into our universe, and I’ll be damned if a greater demon lord gets loosed on our universe on my watch. That’s the mission here, folks- find a way to shut this down for good. Prime directive does not apply here, and nobody gets sacrificed today.” Realizing that’s what the guards upstairs had meant, Rita was now that much more alert. While she wasn’t sure what the right course of action to take, she was determined to figure it out before all hell broke loose- literally.

The Gregorian chanting coming from the assemblage became a low thrum, as the high priest addressed the summoners in a squeakly, childish voice. “The time is at hand! The four are arrived- the virgin, the harlot, the abomination and the devil!”

Turning to Sonak, Rita quipped, “I’m not sure which of those are supposed to be us, but I don’t find any of those titles flattering…”

Meanwhile, Asa squeaked out “Why does that even matter?!?”

But the munchkin demon summoner was continuing in their chant. “We call now upon the Dark Lord, the ruler of the underworld, the demon manager from hell who will deliver us from this stagnant life and bring change to our world!” As they spoke, the large winged demon flew down to stand before the high priest, to present them with the tome which clearly held significance in this ritual.

"There's our opening- the book's the weak link!" Rita Paris said excitedly, hoping that the flash of intuition she was feeling was on the mark. "No book, no summoning. Destroy that book at all costs, people!"

"I, the leader of the people of this world, Keebla, will now recite the ancient prayers in the old tongue!" As the leader threw off her robes to reveal a green and gold outfit, she began reading from the book while holding a rather sinister looking khiris dagger over her head, the wavy blade reflecting the light ominously. Meanwhile, the others moved to bring the four sacrifices and Death into the circle.

Vulcan reflexes and decades of Starfleet discipline showed as Sonak reacted first. While his right hand unwound the ahn woon from his hips, his left hand drew his phaser from it. Thumb clicking the setting to level 16, he fired a concentrated beam with well-trained accuracy right at the book, a lightspeed discharge able to instantly vaporize a good cubic meter of solid rock.

In the first second, it seemed that the book would withstand the barrage. But while Sonak was faster, Rita Paris had been in motion as well as barking orders, and her own phaser beam joined that of the kolinahr, and with their combined beams the tome began to glow, even as the priestess who held it muttered what incantation she could read before the book disintegrated into a pile of ash in her hands.

Looking up from the altar tableau with literal flames escaping his eyes, the demon Haagenti roared his displeasure as he unfurled his wings. “Keep chanting! I will see you through the summoning even without me Maleficum Magori! For now I must deal with these sacrifices who do not know when to lay down and die!” Wings beating the air, the four meter tall demon took to the air, a snarl somehow evident on it’s face as it’s clawed hands raked the air.

“Well, we’re popular again Mister Sonak…” Commander Paris quipped as she fired ineffectually at the demon. “I’m open to suggestions, people…!”

"I suggest you shoot der flachwichser!" Schwein was on top of it with her disruptor, firing repeated bursts into the wings and body of the bull headed demon as he flew to attack Rita and Sonak. Even at max setting, it looked like they were doing little to no damage to him so she whipped out the lance amplification system and screwed it onto the front of her pirate disruptor, charging for a full powered shot that could take down a small shuttle. As it arced through the air, it hit its mark and disintegrated a fair portion of Haagenti's right wing, crippling his flight capabilities and eliciting a roar from him so foul and loud, rocks actually came loose from the cavern's ceiling.

Sensing an opportunity, Dael cried out, “Stop the chanting! He would not have wanted it to continue if it serves no purpose. Can we mass stun these people? And stop Keebla from praying! The psionic energy is likely what will call forth Asm….”the doctor paused, realizing saying the demon’s name was likely not helpful, then continued, “Call forth the being we should maybe not name right now .”

With that, the doctor ducked to dodge a swipe from the claws of Haagenti, and began to serpentine run counterclockwise around the demon at full speed, dodging both the demon and the falling rubble.

Pausing to adjust the setting on her phaser beam to wide dispersal, Rita Paris was in the process of adjusting back to heavy stun when the demon lord landed before her and Sonak breathing heavily. Reacting quickly, Paris trusted that Sonak could handle this easier without her in the way as she dodged low, and dove across the summoning circle between the creature’s legs. Tumbling painfully on the crumbling stone pentacle, she righted herself enough to spin and fire from one knee. While her position wasn’t ideal and her aim was off, a good number of the robed and hooded acolytes collapsed like puppets with their strings cut, so she took more careful aim, drawing a bead on the high priestess and her red robed inner circle.

After narrowly avoiding two hunks of falling ceiling, Asa managed to circle behind a group of acolytes and set their phaser to wide dispersal to match Rita’s efforts. Ducking behind a piece of rubble, the doctor fired on the group, watching them fall to the ground unconscious. The doctor went to move to the next group, but found their path was now impeded by both the unconscious elfin people as well as the debris and detritus on the ground.

In the spirit of improvisation, Asa used two smaller boulders to climb to the top of the rubble they had been hiding behind and took aim at another section of worshipers. They fired and missed, calling over to Sonak, “Lieutenant Sonak! Your 6 O’Clock!” as one particularly murderish looking robed figure approached him from behind. Which was nothing compared to the demon following them in.

But the Vulcan was already on the move. As soon as the demon came at them, he rolled forward, dodging under and away from the treacherous attack and swung his anh woon under and then over him. One weighted end entangled the tip of a wing as he wrapped the other end around a thick ankle on the other side then pulled with the strength of four men.

Like a large tree cut at its roots, the demon crashed to ground on its side. In no time it tore apart the thick leather fighting belt like tissue paper; but before it regained it's footing, all this gave just enough time for Sonak to slap his combadge on the back of the demon of legend's neck.

"Hera! Emergency beam out, destination Z plus maximum range, widest dispersal pattern!"

It would take at least a second for the creature to register Sonak's attack; another to puzzle why he felt nothing; a third to sense something metallic at the back of his neck; a fourth to reach out for it.

But before it could pull it out and then possibly understand to throw it away, the transporter chief would have received the signal, activated the emergency circuit and sent every atom of the being towards all corners of the nearby universe.

Sonak had studied how legendary starship captain James T. Kirk had thus destroyed several powerful entities, from the uberprobe Nomad to the immortal energy being once known as Jack The Ripper. He had calculated the odds favorable enough that it could work here against such a creature.

As the shimmering transporter effect began to take hold, the creature rose to its knees, bellowing as if its denial of the facts could change the laws of physics. Which, as he reared and roared, it appeared that he might do just that. But with the transporter lock being attached to him physically, penetrating the aura of unreality about him that enabled him to ignore natural laws, the shimmering slowly caused him to fade to view, even as the last vestiges of his bellowing cry faded from the chamber.

Turning from the spectacle behind her, Rita Paris smirked as she fired a wide stun beam at the high priestess and her acolytes. “Not looking so good for team demon now, is it ya evil little munchkins! Call me a harlot, willya...”

While the rest of the acolytes went down like a small sack of potatoes, the one known as Keebla seemed immune to the effects of the phaser. Her chanting reached a crescendo as the circle lit up in golden light and what appeared to be a giant clawed hand started reaching out of the summoning circle.

Death screamed in pain as she was drawn towards the circle by an unseen force, a scythe of mist coalescing in her hands.

"The time is nigh! Now is the time for your blood to be spilled!" Laughing maniacally, Keebla took the khiris blade and leapt from her position at the altar. She swept it across the nearest of the four mortals present, Shwein, barely nicking the augmented human's arm, but it seemed to be enough as the circle seemed to start pulsing rhythmically. "One down, three to go!"

“Break the circle!” Asa cried, able to see from their perch as the circle began to thrum. As if by some miracle, the circle still stood in fact from the falling debris, and the doctor began to race towards it, phaser now firing at maximum strength, causing gauges in the floor.

The feeling of psionic energy flooded the chamber, and it took all the doctor had in them to not cower from the feeling. The summoning circle stood miraculously untouched, with neither elfin creature nor debris falling in its way.

“Break the circle!” Asa cried, changing their phaser to kill, concentrated beam, and firing from their perch at a point nearest to them. There was a deafening noise as the energy from the phaser met the energy concentrated inside the line of the circle, and Asa began to sway slightly, but kept their aim true, looking to the rest of the group.

In that time, Keebla was able to leap at Rita and slash at her with the blade of the khiris as well, slicing across her thigh, just enough to cause the pulsing in the magic circle to speed up. "Yes! Now two of you are feeding the summoning!" With that, she leapt away again, this time towards Asa.

As for the circle, it was resistant to the damage around it, but not impervious to energy weapons fire. Asa's phaser was slowly melting through the part they were firing at so Schwein decided to add her own disruptor to the mix and hope it didn't bring the whole chamber down on top of them. As she charged for a full power disruptor blast, the clawed hand started reaching up further out of the circle. When she fired, it somehow bounced off of the circle's barrier and struck the hand reaching out, disintegrating several of the fingers and eliciting a shrill cry of pain from the other side of the summoning circle. The barrier around the edge of the circle was definitely charred greatly, but Schwein's disruptor wasn't going to cut through it.

"We need more phaser power!" Schwein called out to the others as she moved to intercept Keebla instead, firing smaller disruptor bolts at the somehow empowered wicked munchkin.

Seeing the crazed summoner charging at them, Asa decided the better part of valor would be to get the heck out of the way. The doctor jumped off the boulder, landing behind it with a thud and running to the far end of the chamber from Keebla.

“Commander! Baroness! Lieutenant! If this lunatic cuts me it’s just going to make that THING trying to rise stronger. Someone throw a freaking rock at her, will ya?" The doctor called.

That said, they kept their efforts to running away from Keebla, staying to the shadows and running in an unpredictable fashion to stop the evil elf from throwing the weapon at Asa and drawing blood that way.

Drawing again his phaser from his hip, Sonak obeyed the order and fired. But instead of firing exactly where the others were, he sent multiple shots of varying kinds at different points in rapid succession and as randomly as he could. he hypothesized that there was some sort of programming or "mind" of some sort, or maybe a "natural flow" or "field" to the power that resisted their assault. Thus he was calculating that, instead of just adding one more handphaser to the rest, this would help to, if not overwhelm it, at least distract or even disrupt it; enough so that the more concentrated fire of the others would better get through.

And while he was at it, he sent several shots at the feet of the pursuing summoner, gouging the ground before it's advance enough to make it stumble, veer off or hesitate, allowing Asa the opportunity to get away.

"Nimble bitch, isn't she?" Schwein called as she placed herself between Asa and Keebla, forcing a grapple between the two, her disruptor now forgotten on the ground. It ended up with the blade of the khiris in the Baroness's belly, but with one arm wrapped around the evil midget and the other locked on her throat with a death grip, she didn't mind much at this point. She just had to make sure that that blade didn't cut Asa or Sonak.

Coughing up a bit of blood, she tightened her grip and dragged the raving tart over towards the lava surrounding the large dias the whole summoning was taking place on. "I have her! Break that... Circle!"

There had been that long second where the explorer took it all in- Sonak firing what looked like random bursts, part of some advanced strategy he would explain if asked later. Doc Dael scrambling around- the compassionate healer playing keep-away from the midget maniac with a knife trying to summon an extinction level event to end her people's immortal ennui. Rita had a plan forming and knew what she had to do- take the sacrificial dagger out of play.

The harmless-looking elfin priestess' face was contorted with a zealot's purpose- apparently a million years of living like this would do that for you. Too fast moving and small a target for a realistic phaser shot to just hit the khiris- besides, she seemed resistant to phaser fire, so likely it was as well. Throwing rocks wasn't going to be that effective, but the danger dame was pretty positive that she could tackle to cookiemaking cultist.

Just as Rita Paris began to move into action, there was the Baroness, throwing herself in harm's way.

Keeping the knife buried in her gut was not part of any plan Rita had anticipated, but damned if she'd let the sacrifice go to waste. Grabbing the focusing rotator on the barrel of her phaser, Rita cranked the focus into a the tightest possible beam, than turned the power all the way up. On a modern phaser it probably would have warned her that she was exceeding safety limitations which would likely result in weapon burnout and potential destruction. The phaser held no sentimental value for her- Thex had made a pattern and there were dozens of them in the armories now. Right now what she needed was power. Aiming at the circle, she drew a line of fire in her mind and hoped the beam would do it's work quickly.

The fact that it might blow up in her hand was incidental.

Both hands on the phaser, Rita pointed it at the circle, and the narrow yet powerful beam lanced out to carve through the graven stone like a monofilament through fromage. The burst only lasted for 4.2 seconds before the phaser's focusing crystal burned out, but narrow cuts intersected across every line of the circle at least once. Shouting as she threw her burned out phaser at the nutjob wrestling with the Baroness as she ran in to engage. "Fire in the hole!"

With the lines cut, there was an earth shattering peal of thunder and Death's body shattered, along with the eight meter tall, glowing summoning stones around the circle. The circle itself began to fade and the only sound left was the maddened raving of the priestess Keebla, whom with the last of her strength, sliced the Baroness's belly open with her blade right before Schwein flung her into the lava screaming like a loony.

With the last of her energy bleeding out of her, Schwein collapsed on the edge of the dias, a shadowy, graven figure now hovering over her that resembled the woman that had recently become her friend. Reaching for the woman, she almost expected for it to be her time.

But Death smiled, shook her head, and faded away right before Schwein passed out.