Everything Happens At Once

Who: Landing Party Group By The Castle Ruins
Where: By The Castle Ruins, Duh
When: Sheesh, Don't Ask Me
=============
To Keto, everything seemed to have happened too fast.
Tara was presumed to be somewhere within the castle, having
followed the emohawk. The castle now consisting of a pile of rubble
with a few pieces still standing, the odds of her survival were not
considered high. Keto wouldn't have minded, but it was so hard to
find good help nowadays.
Amber had, from what he could tell, flickered for a second and then
collapsed...which occurred about thirty seconds before everything had
exploded. That couldn't just be a coincidence.
Dante and Keats had marched boldly off into what remained of the
castle, after making what was apparently meant to be a moving speech
about the values of friendship, loyalty and the contents of dead
men's wallets. Keto could appreciate at least one of them, but he
was damned if he was going to follow them inside. Instead, he headed
towards where Amber had collapsed at the back of the group, and
gingerly nudged her with a foot as if he was expecting her to explode
(which, given where they were, could very well happen).
<<SNIP>>
[Amber] sat up bolt upright, tears on her face, terrified.
"Dad, we have to leave." She said to her father. "Please Dad, trust
me!"
<<END SNIP>>
"What was that?" asked Phil, turning around to face where his
daughter was scrambling to her feet and Keto was trying to recover
from the near shock-induced heart attack he felt was very close.
Before Amber could say anything, however, a strange hunched figure
came bounding out of the ruins, carrying a bag of some sort.
<<SNIP>>
"Ah!" shouted a startled McJohn as he found himself facing the rest
of the Blue Dwarf crew. His face assumed the expression of a rather
startled gecko. He pulled Dean's head from the bag and cradled in
his arms against his chest.
"Mine! Mine!" he shouted/hissed, "My precioussss... You can't haves
it!"
"I'm not gonna forget this!" shouted Dean's head.
Jay edged closer to Mark, then made a grab for the head. McJohn
hissed and scamped back into one of the castle's hundreds of
convienently located alcoves. "You can't haves it! Nasty fat
smeggerses!"
"Well, now what?" Alota wondered aloud.
"Shouldn't you know, Captain?" said an anonymous wise-ass.
"Shut up."
"Yes ma'am."
<<END SNIP>>
Keto blinked, wondered vaguely why he'd said "yes ma'am" like any
regular subservient crewmember, realised it was because Alota could
actually have him kicked out of an airlock without a suit, and
coughed quietly.
"Well," he said, "Much though I hate to point it out, three...and a
half...of our crewmembers are still missing, two of them probably
still alive in some form or another (not counting Dean's head, which
barely qualifies as above mineral), and we've still to work out who
built this castle, set the Plebes against us and so forth. And we
haven't even begun mining which, as far as I recall, was the whole
purpose of a mining vessel."
"For once the doc's not being completely out of his mind," agreed
Jay reluctantly, then hastily added, "Dear" when Alota threw a glare
in his direction. "We should go inside and look for Dean's head,
Tara, Dante and Keats."
"No! We have to get away from here! Right now!" protested Amber
rapidly.
"Why?" asked Keto, frowning slightly. Not that he was
disagreeing...but if there was something to be worried about in those
ruins, he wasn't wanting to be the first one inside.
============
OOC: Tag. I've been a little overwhelmed with beginning-of-term work
so haven't posted for a while. I think I've kept track as best I
can, and haven't screwed anything up majorly with this post, but let
me know if I have. - Chris (JHXMT)