Pawn shop in space

The first chamber we entered in the temple seemed bare enough at first. A lever inset in the wall opened up the door and a bare space greeted us. Glosh grabbed a few parts from Yil’s pack and made a few pieces shake themselves free from the pile. Once he had what he needed he assembled a golem in front of the doorway. It was a humanoid robot with two arms and legs. It's little fists were pistons allowing it to punch out and press buttons or agitate small creatures. It was only 2 feet in terms of height and about a quarter of that wide. We were not planning on using the model for it's intended purpose (whatever that might have been), but instead as live bait. The little robot trudged into the center of the room and then stopped, going no further. In anticipation, we all waited.

'Well, nothing’s happening.' Glosh pointed out helpfully.

'Make it punch the wall' Yil suggested. So Glosh walked it forward and made it punch the wall.

'That was pointless'

'Wow thanks for your input Glosh, do you perhaps have a better suggestion to offer?'

'No'

'Wow, thank you for you so much for putting your mental acumen to work- maybe use it now to be quiet?'

'That's quite enough boys, maybe we should simply enter the room?'

'Fine, but I'm staying out here' Glosh asserted.

'Glosh if you stay out here you're more likely to dose off than be of any help. Besides if we get separated we loose all your robots for future scouting and die to a trap. Whereas you’ll leave alone and definitely die to one of the many predatory biological organisms that roam this planet' I cut in decisively, knowing Glosh could get flighty in bad scenarios. Truthfully I was worried about, if not his loyalty then definitely the resilience of his will. Left alone in an ancient temple on an unknown world with no way to call for help? I would be surprised if Glosh didn't find himself safely hovering in orbit within the first five minutes of existing unattended, deadly beasts patrolling or not. I nodded at Yil before stepping into the chamber and he nodded back in understanding. 'Yil will stay in the exit way should anything go wrong.'

Grumbling Glosh brushed by me to go retrieve his Golem. Muttering about how there was no trust in this party and how he was the only one qualified to save anyone due to his many skills and great intelligence. No sooner had he passed me than the stone began to rumble closed again.

When we had first opened the door it had very slowly receeded into the wall to either side of it, splitting in the middle. The sliding door had opened almost painfully slowly, the mechanism having being left dormant for years uncounted. But now we had greased the wheels a little, it slid closed at a noticeably faster rate. 'Glosh let's go' Glosh looked fearfully over his shoulder, still stumbling towards his golem. 'Dammit Glosh' I had to rush forward and wrap my arms around his body in order to carry him out of there after he failed to react in time. Due to his unusual shape it was actually very hard to actually transport him anywhere. It was impossible to grab him by the scruff of his neck because he didn't have one. You couldn't pull him by his arms or legs or they could easily detach. Half the reason he was so hunched over is because his race could naturally curl into a ball shape in order to roll away from danger. He didn't need arms or legs to do that hence them being detachable. His skin was also slippery smooth, almost scaly. This meant you had to hook your arms around him like a bag of wet paste and uncomfortably suspend him. Even with my legs I struggled to waddle to the door with him secured in my arms.

Yil struggled to keep the doors open but had no hope in stopping their inexorable advance. I moved as swiftly as I could manage towards the door but the gap become thinner and thinner before my eyes. Just as I though I might be able to make it Glosh slipped from my arms and fell to the ground. Panicking, I looked from him to the doorway. Any chance of squeezing through the gap would be gone in the next two seconds. I almost left him, but to do so would have been beyond callous. After all I was the one who had convinced him to come, Yil unexpectedly failing to convince him" Arkostatosh's eyes rolled worryingly in their stalks as she said this.

"So I stood over Glosh and drew my blade, his body splayed out on the floor below me. My blade swished side to side as I readied myself before moving it into low guard. There was a moment of silence as all the rooms doors remained sealed and we were completely enclosed in a square tomb of rock. The quiet was broken by hissing from above and rolling my eyes upwards I saw dozens of slits opening in the roof above us. Burbling sounds started to fill the room and the hydraulic hisses from before were replaced by the sizzling sounds of materials exposed to extreme heat. Taking a step back I saw a slit open directly above our heads. 'Get up Glosh!' He groaned loudly in response and I had to sheave my blade to help pull him to his feet. No sooner were we both standing then the metal began to fall from the ceiling. Hissing, bubbling gold fell down onto us each of us forcing us to jump back to avoid being burnt and covered in the material. Of course, jumping back doesn't do you much good when the space behind you is also dripping gold. Crying out in pain I bent under the flow and dropped to the floor. Groaning, I tried to fling the burning gold off of me. The metal strangely attempted to encapsulate my skin. Instead of sliding down and off me like a normal liquid it wrapped around me unnaturally as if alive. Relief came to me as my back was sheltered from the deadly rain, relief quickly smothered as my legs and uncovered sections of my body began to be coated in the metal. shrieking in pain I jumped to my feet and flung my pack above my head, recognizing it was what had protected part of me from the deluge.

Looking around me I saw waterfalls of gold pouring slowly from all over the room, not space for a person between any of them. Stood next to me grimacing was Glosh. He held his Golem above his head with his expendable arms, struggling to carry the weight. The surface of it was almost already covered in gold, and the superheated metal was moving towards his fingertips as I watched. His already shaking hands began quivering in both weakness and agony. Recognising he was about to drop and be encapsulated as a very lifelike statuette I lunged to my knees beside him.

'Put the golem on my pack' Grunting with the strain of moving the robot Glosh swung the figure onto the edge of my backpack, where it paused. Glosh's hands were now fused to the machine. The gold covering grew thicker by the moment and his hands became further trapped in the burning iron of wealth. Glosh met my eyes with grim determination. Within them I saw the certainty that he was about to die. With one last effort he leaned backwards and his front foot rocked into the air, the golems weight very nearly toppling him over as it hovered behind his head. The waterfall above continued to fall and gold fell in drops and streams onto the front of his body, covering and eating through his clothing. The extra weight was what he needed. Glosh rocked back forward and the golem was thrown forwards onto my pack like it was before, except this time there was a clink as Glosh’s partially golden arms forcefully collided with the its edge. Glosh dashed forward, both of his limbs having detached from his body."

“Holy Glorpal.”Jim's voice rang out into the room. The meaty pudding he was digging into fell off his spoon from halfway to his mouth.

"Holy Glorpal indeed” arkotosh responded

“His arms just came off, like clean off? Gold encrusted and all? Insane. Did you bring them with you?” Jim asked still shocked out of a morbid sense of curiosity, not realising that coming from a man who had just bought precious artefacts from them his words seemed more predatory than wondrous. Upon seeing the concern in their eyes he hurried to justify himself. "Woah I don't want to buy them from you! It just freaked me out is all-it took me by surprise. You guys can keep his arms, I don't want them. I don't wanna take his hands off of your hands" Jim guffawed at his statement- diplomatically.

The aliens concerned glances quickly turned into disapproving and disappointed glares. Jim quickly clammed up under Arkotash's probing stare. Any disapproving looks sent from Yil's direction minimal and honestly not all too oppressive, considering his main concern was shoveling the contents of his pudding cup into his face.

"We did not bring Glosh’s arms with us no.”

Yil grunted. "coulbbn't haveft anyways" His words were mumbled around a mouth full of Jim's mystery brown pudding. The thick and goey substance making a sticky mess of his clear skin. His normally small and discrete mouth holes stretched wide open to fit in more of the delicious desert. Their size dwarfed the tiny nose that sat as a barely visible indent in the middle of his oblong face. Any previous image of decorum was ruined by the almost frantic passage of spoon to cup to mouth. The globbed up widened mouthhole spoiling any sort of regality he held. It was quite a gross sight honestly, one Arkostatosh quickly became embarrassed by.

"Control youself Yil"

Yil poured the remaining drops of water out of his flask over his hole, washing his pudding down before scraping the goey remnants surrounding his maw into his mouth with the rest of it in a disturbing display of alien autonomy- especially considering the fact he made no discernible swallow. "Sorry" Yil replied with an unapologetic grin teasing the bottom of his holes. Building familiarity was cracking the barrier of unapproachability Yil usually displayed. Jim's offering of eager ears and dubious pudding cups after such a long trek through the galaxy was quickly endearing him into these aliens hearts in spite of previous negotiations, allowing him to access a more casual side of the duo.

Jim got up to refil Yil's large water flask and Arkostatosh continued her tale. "So as I was saying. Glosh's arms detached and stayed connected to the golem, swiftly becoming relics. I shook the golem off my pack before it could fuse to it, learning from Gloshes’ mistake. The pack of strapped down machine parts I was carrying grew heavier and heavier as I held it, the weight of the gold starting to accumulate as it coated the already somewhat heavy machine parts. Just as unbreable as the growing weight was the growing heat. The feel of the stone room had quickly risen from a cool touch against the skin to the burning stone of a sun sphericed planet. The still air baking in the heat. My body fought to cool itself as the gold in the room acted as swift heating magma, heating the room until I felt like I was stuck in the inside of an overclocked furnace. My suit began releasing anti inflammatory liquids and Glosh's much inferior vest covering looked liable to catch fire any moment. Just as the gold began to seep along the underside of the burdensome pack I felt all the air in the room stir and my eyes swivelled towards the blank section of wall we had entered from. A hole had opened in the door and It quickly winded along its top edge. Yil cried through the hole. ‘Stay back from the exit’

Struggling to draw breath in the extreme heat of the room there was no hope I could reply. Even if I could have formulated a response it wouldn’t have been more than a defeated laugh. Moving anywhere with that burden in that hellscape was not a likely cause of action.

Sudden pain shot through my dendrites. My tentacles were alight with pain. The gold had pooled on the ground, each pile of molten metal congealing before moving out, now spreading tho fill the room. I ran toward the door, ignoring Yil’s warning. The door exploded in a thin line down the middle and yil charged into the stone closets to the gap, crumbing large chunks of the brittle rock wherever he hit. I reached forward twice with my tentacles before the pain became unbearable. The gold actively resisted my efforts, the thick sludge like matter climbing up my legs as I moved. I threw the pack down onto the lake infront of me and climbed aboard. Glosh followed behind me. Without the pack protesting us the gold fell onto my body freely and my armor did its best to lower the golds monstrous temperature. Glosh sobbed beside me as he kept step, knowing his death was just a step away if he faltered. ‘Move Glosh’ I swayed and Glosh jumped, tilting in the air to move past me. My back feelers jerked out as grasped him in the air, setting him down on the edge of the platform before receding under my armour.

Leaning down towards the floor I flexed my chest and made a triangle shape with my hand feelers. Air blasted out from the front of my suit in concentrated streams propelling our pack forward like a boat. In a blinding haze of pain I managed to turn and see Glosh already jumping for the exit. I followed, vacating the raft before it crashed into the wall and aiming to shoot the gap between waterfalls to the partially destroyed door. My face smashed into the ground and my consciousness left me. My mind turned blank.”