The sand Jack was toying with started to frost before it completely froze over, a shadow looming over him. Diana stood behind him with a smirk, dressed appropriately for the much warmer weather of Kiltorna. "Hey Anklebitter." She crossed her arms, glancing around briefly at the ruined city as well before turning back to Jack. "Who else are we waiting for?"

Her question was answered by a voice behind both.
"Sorry about the hold-up, got sand in my boots."
The Orbital Drop Shock Trooper, Corporal Michael Jones, appeared beside both of them.
"So this is it huh? Looks pretty. Sure hope we don't have to stay here long though."
He looked the two over.
"I'll take point?"

"Diana," Jack stood up as his sand froze before him, turning to welcome the woman. "And Corporal, glad you both made it." He smiled at both of them, examining each for a moment before continuing. "It really is nice, alot of gold for a whole city." Now he looked out to the ruins, squinting his eyes as the sun reflected off the shining structures.

Infront of them lay a long slope down into the city, although it was by no means at street level. The sand had buried the towers so much that it was almost five stories up that they could see any possible entrances usually in the form of windows. One such window was on a tower to their right, large and circular as if the building was highly important.

"That's our first search," Jack pointed to the tower in question. "That tower leads down into the grand library. If it's ancient scrolls we're after I bet they're in there." Before moving he looked to Michael. "Yeah, take point. Be careful though, the dead still haunt this place. Among other things..."

Diana stretched an arm above her head, a slight smirk on her face as she examined the city and then the tower. "I'm already half dead, a couple of undead miscreants don't bug me." She reached behind her back, pulling her twin swords from their sheaths and connecting them into a staff. 

She walked up to the top of the sand ridge, her eyes briefly skimming the incline. Her smirk widened, and suddenly underneath her feet an oval shaped thin sheet of ice formed. It looked ironically like a mini surfboard. "Well what are we waiting for?" She didn't wait for an answer, instead tilting the board down slightly as she started coasting down the incline.

Michael watched as Diana "surfed" down the sandy incline.
"...so I'm guessing she didn't hear the part about me taking point.." He said.
He shot a quick glance at Jack before raising his Battle Rifle in a ready-to-fire position. He then proceeded to follow Diana down the sandy slope, albeit a lot more carefully and slowly. The way his boots were designed, particularly at the soles, allowed him to grip onto the sand and slide very minimally, if at all thanks to the friction.

"Yeah," Jack replied to Michael, watching Diana surf down the slope. As the soldier made his way carefully down he took a long step forward. "But it does look kinda fun." A smirk flashed at Michael as he slid past, surfing down the slope using nothing but gravity and a slight manipulation of the sand around him. 

Once he reached the bottom he waited for Michael, before gesturing to the large window that was now only a few meters to their right. 
"Okay, you can take point for real now." He laughed just as a noise came from the tower. "Erm..." His eyes narrowed at the window, unable to see in properly because of the lack of light inside. Hand reaching for the sword sheathed on his back, he gave a silent nod to Michael to lead the way in and find out what was inside.

(4 Skeletons, 2HP Each)

Diana frowned slightly, muttering under her breath. "I'd be better leading considering I can smell and hear them before they're coming." Diana sighed, twirling her staff around in her hand. 

"There are four of them, can't get an accurate scent on what they are so either they're made of the terrain or they just don't have a scent." She droned, moving up to the window and peering into it. She could see four outlines, her eyesight was better than average and she was used to seeing in the dark. 

"Take point all you like, but I don't quite fancy waiting around." She drawled before slamming her staff down onto the window to shatter it, then jumping down through it.

Michael jogged up to the window and stopped at the right side of it, pressing his back against the outer wall as he readied his rifle in a lowered position. He peered around the corner and in through the window. Turning on the VISR mode on his Heads-Up-Display, he could make out four outlines of skeletal figures inside the room.

"Well well," he began in a lowered tone. "Lemon head's right, four of them. They look... thin. Skeletal. I reckon we'd be able to rattle their bones around quite easily." He withdrew his head from around the corner. He then unclipped a grenade from his belt, activated the fuse and kneeling down, reached around and rolled it into the room inside.

"Erm," Jack raised a finger at the soldier, even considering stopping the grenade from flying. However he let them all see it's consequences. As the grenade rolled in the skeletons turned their heads down to face it, soon enough meeting their end in a fiery explosion. All four perished in one blast, but they weren't the only things that shattered. 

The floor inside gave way, tumbling down to the storey below which seemed to reach much further backwards. In fact, they had blasted down into the main hall of the library. 

"We gotta get down there." Jack said, peering over the ledge to see whether Diana had made it safely down. Without pause he then jumped down, landing softly in the main hall below.

"C'mere you shit head! This lemon head is gonna kick your fucking ass until YOU'RE one of those fucking skeletons!" She swore angrily, before the floor had collapsed she had managed to wedge her staff between two stones in the towers wall and was currently hanging from her staff. 

There was soot and dust on her face, and in her hair and a shoulder of her T-shirt was on fire. "I'll kick your preteen ass too anklebitter! Could stopped the fucking grenade!" She growled out before disconnected one end of the staff, now only having by one hand.

She swung herself up slightly, jabbing the other swords blade in between two stones a bit above her. Then she swung herself upwards, using the sword above her to balance herself on top of the other sword. After getting her balance she carefully removed the top sword from the wall, crouching slightly before leaping down the other two with a jump. 

She slammed down in front of Jack, a small patch of ice appearing the second she landed and fanned out about a foot with spikes around the edges. She straightened up, throwing Jack and Michael an icy glare. She patted the fire on her shoulder out, dusting her clothes off and attempting to fix her hair. "I'm not the fireproof sister."

Michael walked over to the edge of the massive hole that he had created, i.e. the window frame. He peered down and caught sight of Diana.
"Yeah, she's fine. Just a bit less.. blonde." He said as he looked over to Jack. He then looked back down at Diana.
"Yeah sorry about that, my mistake. Didn't know the floor was gonna give away like that." He magnetically attached his Battle Rifle to his back, before unsheathing both of his combat knives, turning around, lowering himself slightly and slamming them into the rock, using them to climb down steadily.
"But hey, we got a short-cut to the library. Means we can get outta this place quicker. Haha."

Jack laughed once he knew Diana wasn't blown to smithereens, but quickly he was silenced by a shuffling sound further down the hall. Again it was dark since no light had graced the library for decades, so Jack couldn't make out what had made the noise. "Well we lost our element of surprise, so might aswell get a little light in here."

Placing his hand over the hourglass pendant around his neck, it quickly lit up bright enough to illuminate the first rows of bookcases in their view. 
"Oh, hi there." Jack said to the figure he saw first scrambling to stand up against one of the bookcases. It was more of a zombie than a skeleton, and the rags of cloth still adorned it's body from when it was living. The creature stumbling forward for him, along with some of it's friends. Another two had come from the left to take Diana, whilst it appeared one had been laying just beside Michael all along. It's hand shot up to try and grab his foot, clawing at his leg.

Diana reacted quickly, flexing her left hand as ice seemed to stem from it until it was the same shape as the sword in her other hand. She ducked the first zombies advances, taking the opportunity to jab her sword through its chest. 

But her face happened to be right under the wound when she stabbed upwards, dead blood oozing down from the wound and onto her face. Diana recoiled instantly, even going so far as to let go of her sword and stumble back. A portion had gotten into her mouth, a dizzy feeling starting to sweep over her. "Shit. Zombies. Dead Blood. Stupid." She hissed out, a bit unsteady on her feet as she abandoned her ice blade as well. 

She put her hands out, ice spikes shooting from her fingertips although they did not hit the zombies heads like she intended. Instead they hit their shoulders and skimmed their faces, or not at all. 

"Shit." Diana cursed again, her resilience against dead blood was basically non existent. Realizing that in this state her powers would prove difficult, she stumbled around the book case. The two zombies had gotten her between two bookcases. As soon as she got around to the other book case she slammed her shoulder as hard as she could against it, hoping it would fall and squash the zombies.

As Michael began to open fire at the emerging zombies, a sharp pain shot up his leg, enough for him to wince. Looking down at its source, he spotted a zombie which had now clung onto his ankle and held on firmly.
Reacting quickly, Michael directed his aim down at the undead creature and fired off a three-burst shot, aimed directly at its head.

Jack charged forward with his sword aloft, slicing down the shoulder of the approaching zombie. It's arm came off clean oozing a dead gush of blood, although it's other arm worked just fine. It tried to swipe at him but he managed to evade, simple swinging his sword back around to chop it's head off swiftly.

Looking to the others he saw a bookcase fall upon two, and then the bullets finishing off the one by Michael's foot. All seemed quiet, until a much louder noise echoed out. Bookcases in the distance seemed to be collapsing one by one, with the sound of heavy footsteps following. By the time it reached them it was too late, a giant behemoth of a creature broke through the bookcases. (1 Behemoth, 20 HP)

It's skin was rotten and stuck to it was the remains of bloodied cloth. Clearly it was some sort of magical abomination, as nothing in this planets history had originally looked like it. On it's charge it came across Michael and Jack, swinging it's enormous arms to try and smack into them both. (4 Damage to both).

"Shit." Diana cursed, watching the massive and disgusting arms smack into the two of them. The behemoth was quite large and Diana could use that to her advantage. 

She took in a deep breath, attempting to push away her dizziness and focus on thr task at hand. She crouched down, pressing her palms to the floor as the temperature in the room seemed to drop slightly. Ice spread from beneath Diana's palms, starting to cover the floor in a cold slippery sheet.

She was intending to make the giant monstrous creature slip.

"Oh shit!" The ODST said as he saw the giant creature.
He then turned and ran for cover, doing so behind a semi collapsed bookshelf a few meters away from the creature.
"Stuff like this is never simple is it?" He shouted out to both of them.
He then looked down to his riflle, noticing its ammunition counter reading 33 bullets. He slammed a fresh clip into it and the counter went back up to 36.
"Well, you know what they say..."
He then suddenly emerged from cover and began to fire three shot bursts at the creature's legs, specifically aiming to hit its knees.

Jack was knocked aside and into the nearby wall, taking him out of the action for a few moments. In that time the floor beneath the beast iced over, causing it to lose it's balance and stumble to it's knees (17HP). Just as it tried to stand bullets came for it's knees, cutting the muscles in them to prevent any movement (14HP). Enraged by the frosted floor it's gaze turned to the source; Diana.

Using it's enormous hands it reached out to pull itself towards her, attempting to smack her with it's giant fist (4 Damage). Jack however had managed to pull himself up, charging forward to meet the beast. Jumping atop of it he sliced at it's back, hoping to distract it from crushing Diana (4 Damage).

Diana flinch slightly when she saw the giant fists coming towards her, but exhaled when Jack met the beast instead. She pressed her hands against the ice for again and suddenly it began to soften, within seconds it was boiling water. 

Considering the fact that the beast was still on the floor it was probable that the water had sloshed into it. Then Diana put her fingers in the water, she was manipulating it so it would all just go flat, centralizing it all around the beast.

Then with a flex of her fingers the ice froze over again, hoping to trap the beast.

"... the bigger they are, the harder they fall" Michael said with a smirk as after the Beast haf collapsed.
As the Beast began to attack Diana, Michael was about to fire off another few shots but stopped in fear of hitting Jack, who had jumped onto it.
Instead, he lowered his aim so that the gun was pointed roughly at the abdomen of the Beast, and then began to fire more three shot bursts.

Ice began to form in the beast's own body, permeating the holes left by it's rotting. Soon enough the abomination was frozen in place on the floor, ice sticking through it's body gruesomely (11HP). Alongside this there came a slice at it's back, opening up a wound that seeped with dead blood (7HP). Bullets sprayed down low, pentetrating it's abdomen and causing a cry of anger (4HP).

It was however unable to move, and with that in mind Jack thrust his sword down into it's head, splitting it's brain in two (4 Damage). Instantly the beast quit squirming, and lay still in final death (0HP).  With a sigh of relief Jack pulled his sword from it's head.

"Right, we better get searching. Diana take the left, Michael right." He gestured to the rows of bookcases before them. "I'll go middle. We're looking for a large scroll with a glowing rune inscribed, but if you find anything else interesting it might be worth a look." Jack then nodded before proceeding down the middle aisle of shelves.

(3 zombies, 2 in Diana's aisle and 1 in Michael's. 3HP Each.)

Diana stood up although she was a bit wobbly on her feet. She made a small ice ball in her hand, then she started to close her hand and it melted into a ball of water. She tossed it on her face to wash away the dead blood, then shaking her head and taking the left side of the book cases. 

Diana sped through the bookcases, eyes roaming the stacks for anything glowing or anything that looked like a scroll. "You know old place like this..." She grinned slightly, moving to the bookcases pressed against the wall and checking books and pulling them out a bit. "Bound to have a few secret passages..."

Michael reloaded his Battle Rifle and nodded to Jack as he instructed him to go down the right aisle.
"Sure thing, kid."
As he continued down, he scanned the bookshelves. Old books and scrolls, some withered to the point of falling apart while others remained intact populated the shelves. Dust and cobwebs were all over the place and he found himself stepping through a few as he searched.

"Lots'a scrolls, none with glowing stuff on it though," he said as he picked one up. Shaking the dust off it, he examined the roll of paper for a moment before putting it back. Just then he went alert as a groan came from straight ahead, deeper into the library. Michael raised his Battle Rifle and loked through the scpope, turning on nigjt vision just before. Another zombie.
"Well hello beautiful.."
He squeezed the trigger, and a three-shot burst went straight through it's head.

Michael's bullets tore through the zombies brain, killing it instantly (0HP). However, the gunshots echoing from Michael's aisle stirred movement in Diana's. Peering through the gaps in the books, Jack could see two figures behind Diana.
"Watch out!" He shouted, kicking the bookcase into one of the zombies closing in on her. For good measure his foot stomped down, hoping to crush it underneath (4 Damage).

His eyes darted up, hoping Diana could handle the last one.