76

Controllers pull Therko to his feet, and everyone runs up the ramp. Keimia scowls; she obviously wanted to try her spear on the Painted Guardian. Then her eyes go wide as you nearly take her head off. Your machete forces her back against the wall of the courtyard, but her speed and strength are incredible. Flames blacken the steel of your blade as you fight.

But you match Keimia blow for blow, only retreating when ophidians close in on you from every direction. You fall back up the ramp, parrying javelins and cudgels, and join the others at the top of the observation tower as Keimia follows you up.

Control calls it an observatory, but you can't be sure what kind of place you're in. You see instruments of beaten gold and dark glass, fired clay tablets marked with unfamiliar cuneiform-like signs. Slowly turning red-hot stone cylinders are powered by what appears to be a flow of magma channeled up from below with huge obsidian screws. The magma fills the hot air with red haze.

"This is it," Control says, sorting through clay tablets. "Let's get what we need and go."

As if Keimia is going to let it be that easy.