Layton listened to every word Nuli spoke as he stared at the planet in awe. Once she finished, he couldn't help but share his thoughts. "Don't think I'm not paying attention, but I must remark on how amazing this is." He said as he pointed his hand the behemoth "Space is filled with wonders like this, sometimes it makes me wonder why I became what I am today, and not an explorer instead..." he said as he exhaled. But then he remembered why. "Fun fact: Did you know that a planet was discovered that had a core which was composed of literally solid diamond!" Layton said with an odd expression on his face. Somewhat like a 1000 mile stare.

Layton suddenly was brought back to reality. He let out a nervous chuckle "Heh heh, sorry about that..." he said as he said as he scratched the back of his head. "Anyway, how do they know the cubes is in this specific tomb? Did they map it or something?" he asked suspiciously.
 
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Jane almost disappeared in the coat that was made for the larger species. The mask in her hands for now. Apparently they didn't make those things for children. Luckily they did somehow found a helmet and coat that fitted enough to be safe. Even though it required her too were about 5 layers of clothing underneath and made her look ridiculous. The little girl stared out of the window to the giant ball of ice not really paying attention on the knowledge the others were showing off.

"Where is the tomb?" she asked pushing her nose against the window looking for a sign of a temple. "I think they got the other artefacts from there as well," she answered.
 
Vir nodded as she sat in the spceship, listening to the story.''When is the next 200 year-long summer? I want to know so I can book my retirement trip.'' She said. She then proceeded to look at the purpleskinned being. ''What's the trip to the temple like? How much walking do we need to do between our landing site and the temple? Also... you mentioned that the structures are built to survive the cold. Does that mean... there's something alive down there?'' She asked as she cocked up her rifle as she held it in her hands readily.
 
The ship flew some more over the old bare wasteland. It took a couple of minutes but what appeared to structure were finally noticed. Nuli descended the ship a bit further down, landing it right on the icy floor, She looked over to everyone else and turned off the ship. "Not sure about that, there could be something living there, I don't know." Nuli dropped the pressure of her ship before opening the hatch. She didn't want a vacuum blowing everyone out. Just outside looked like a large excavation area. Big, metal machines were all around, though they looked pretty abandoned. It seemed they were used to melt through the ice.

Nuli stepped out of the ship, handing Layton the digital map for him to use. Whatever they had to get looked to be directly underneath them. Good thing the machines had dug them tunnel weeks or months before their arrival.
 
Layton examined the map with great interest. And what he saw was not quite like what he had imagined. The place was filled with corridors and big rooms. Not to mention that pretty much all of it was underground. He looked up from his map and at the huge excavation area, then at the map again. Earlier, Layton was getting thoughts of statues made of gold, and staircases made of silver. But now, it all came crashing down when he remembered the place was already probably looted. All except for those damn cubes.

"Well, there goes my enthusiasm." he spoke in a disappointed tone, trails of his breath escaping his mask. "I guess there is no use standing out here." he shivered slightly "Let's see what wonders await us." he said as he handed the map over to Jane and proceeded to march towards the entrance.
 
Jane put on the oxygen mask as she follows the others into the wasteland. It felt almost like home only a lot colder and with a lot more ice. "If the summers are as bad as the winters I am not sure I want to be here in summer," she answered the woman. Pulling the coat closer to her.

As the man was looking at the map she was standing on her tiptoes trying to look at the map. She smiled as she saw the many tunnels and large halls. It had been a long time since she had been underground. Not since she had escaped their moon. Thankful she took over the map studying it in her hands. "Well seems like we have a lot of walking to do," she said before following Layton as quickly as she could without slipping.
 
Vir put on her suit and her mask as she walked up to the exit door. She holds her gun hanging upon her shoulder. ''Alright. Let's just head in and look for the room with the fancy cubes and grab some. Keep your ears and nostrils sharp in case you spot anything out of the ordinary. Be especially scared if you smell something through your masks.'' Vir said as she looked around the place with her heatvision eyes as her feet fell upon the cold and frozen wasteland floor of the excavation site.''Do you guys know if we should stick together or split up?'' She asked.
 
Nuli made her way out of her ship and looked around. There was a silence in the air, besides some wind and such, even so, that was very much light. There's one entrance to the temple and there's no way of knowing what's under there. "No point in splitting up, it's a temple, not a maze the map seems to make it clear of that," Nuli commented immediately. She took one deep breath, then suddenly she dashed off, heading right down the hole. There were stairs but those were frozen and covered in ice. The temple was much, much deeper then Nuli expected. Going down the stairs took some time but the moment she arrived, she knew she was in the temple. Those corridors were huge and everything was smooth
 
Layton followed suit. The frozen stairs posed no problem for the athletic thief. He quickly caught up with Nuli and proceeded to observe the hallway. He had to admit, it wasn't what he expected. Then again, he never looted a tomb before. What he also realized was the fact that he wasn't well enough equipped. The only thing that he could really make useful was his zipline gun. Then again, that would be useful no matter the situation.

"We should all watch our step. The last thing we need is to set off a trap and be forced to run away from a giant boulder." he said somewhat jokingly, but the seriousness in his voice was evident. He slid on his NV goggles "So, where to?".
 
Jane carefully followed the other down the stairs, holding on to the wall, to make sure she wouldn't slip and fall. When she arrived at the bottom of the stairs she looked down in awe. The smooth tunnels where much different than the rough, tight tunnels of the moon.

It took a bit for the girl to figure out where she was on the map. but, she figured that out reading the map wasn't that difficult. "there," she said pointing the direction of a tunnel. She immediately dashed off in the direction of the tunnel but, of course, she watched her feet.
 
Vir stepped along with the crew upon the stairs. She had her eyes shifted to the nightvision. She carefully followed along others as she walked down the stairs. ''Try to get a good hold on environment at all times. You wouldn't want to slip on the ice.'' Vir commented. She proceeded to slowly pull a utility knife as she started walking next to the wall with the knife each time getting stabbed into the icey wall to give her an extra layer of stability in case of a slippery floor. Some small chunks often fall from the icey walls as she stabs them.

Vir frowned as she saw Jane run forward with little care. She soon sighed as she continued her slow but noisy advancement forward. ''Continue running like that and you'll slip and earn yourself a Darwinx award.'' She said. She kept her ears open as she listened to the temple's sounds in case she heard anything of an unknown origin, like a sound that the four of them are not creating.
 
Silence, there was a bit f wind but other than that, complete silence. Nuli looked around a bit, the entire temple looks to be beautiful, too bad it must have been looted. Oh, Nuli looked quite a bit more and she heard some footsteps. Well, the footsteps belonged to boots. A thin-looking alien walked across the hallway before noticing the four individuals just at the entrance. She had a lot of books and her species seemed to be well adapted to the cold.

"Oh, you must be here for the cubes, I'm Dr Kalam. Just straight ahead at the end of this temple. I, I have to warn you a bit, while the temple looks quiet and peaceful we still don't fully understand it." The alien said. She looked to be an archaeologist with the clothing he wore.

MISSION STATEMENT BY KALAM:
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Long before the creation of the Commerce Partnership when most species were either primitive or not yet evolved yet. There was a civilization that spanned across the Galaxy. No one knows who they were or where they went, but they left behind giant temples and ruins ripe for exploration. Many new civilizations were lucky to have these temples in their home planets. Studying ancient technology had helped some of the newest civilizations get a head start in their planetary conquest. At last, when the Commerce Partnership arose, they took a liking to these ancient ruins, buying entire planets they suspect contained valuables. They brought this planet just a few years ago, managing to find this temple above the ice. Excavating was amazing, all sorts of never before seen artefacts were looted and sold to the highest bidder. But then, they hit jackpot and found the Argon cubes. Those cubes contain something, a kind of energy. We don't know what but they seem to be powering the temple itself. Still, that didn't stop the Commerce Partnership from looting the temple, grabbing as many cubes as possible. But the more they grabbed, the more the temple sunk, and the more unstable it got. We're relatively safe here, but if you go down, be careful. The entire place is collapsing from the bottom up. If all the cubes are removed, the entire temple might sink into the ice!

END STATEMENT.
 
"Hmm... I see..." Layton was suddenly deep in thought. He slowly dragged the palm of his robotic hand over the ancient wall. "That is very useful information ,friend, it really is." he then proceeded to run a small bit of rubble between his middle and index finger and his thumb. He stared at it, or rather through it with a bizarre 100 mile stare. "But I must say, if what you're saying is true, then I might know why they sent us to retrieve the -presumably- last cube." he then dusted away the rubble from his fingers away and faced his teammates. "If this indeed falls apart if you take it's cubes, then by judging the shape of the tomb, I simply cannot say that there is more than one cube left." he said, clear as day. "And that is -in no way- far fetched. Think about it. How did they make it out alive? Why would they send someone like us? As soon as we take that one cube we will die because we'll be buried alive!" he stated "But don't get me wrong, I don't think that is their plan, but it would explain why they have sent us." he locked behind himself for a moment and said "But hopefully I'm wrong and there are multiple cubes down there, because we're fucked if there aren't."
 
Jane stopped in front of the man and listened a little impatient at what he had to say. "Well, only one way to find," Jane answered Layton as she proceeds to walk on. "When we don't go we die anyway, so there is not much to lose really," she added as she turned around. "Are you coming? I want to get the artefact and get out of here as quick as possible." After sitting and waiting around the girl seemed to glow up when she finally could do something. The girl actually felt at home under the ground even though it was much colder and the walls were much smoother. She wasn't that bothered by the risk of getting buried alive. At the mines that risk was always there, it was best not to think too much about it or the fear would freeze you.

"Try not to damage the walls that much, we don't want to trigger the thing crumbling down," she warned the others as she proceeds on.
 
Vir stopped on her steps as she stood there once the person appeared in front of them. She quickly raised her gun in self-defence as she stood there and looked at the suspicious alien that stood before her eyes. ''Well, I doubt that one cube is enough to keep this temple from crumbling down if it requires something like a dozen cubes to operate. There must be more than one cube left.'' She slowly lowered her gun as she took out the knife from the wall as she walked up to the alien chick. ''Can you work as our guide to the lower levels? You may be more eyesavvy and know the things that we should be looking for when hunting for these cubes.'' Vir explained as she stood a couple of feet in front of the alien.
 
"There being more than one cube makes sense. I predict there should be about three... Well, that's a random guess, I have no idea." Nuli commented casually. There were stairs just ahead, going down. How far done, she has no idea. She sighed lightly and began walking again anyways.

The alien looked at the group and nodded. "Yeah, it's clear this is a suicide mission, I'll guide you down to the first few levels, but you'll have to make it to the very bottom yourself." The archaeologist proceeded to put on some glasses. She went into her beg into order to take a flashlight. "It gets really dark deep down." She said. Walking ahead of everyone to lead the way.

The stairs were very dark and went really far down. In fact, it was difficult to see the next floor underneath them. There were old bits of technology along the walls and such, one area even looked like some ancient form of an elevator. But obviously not functioning, either the parts were looted or the temple didn't have enough power to run it. Interestingly enough, the deeper everyone went, the warmer it got. Some of the ice was melting, dripping unto the floor making the stairs extra slippery
 
"Damn, this place sure is something." Layton remarked "Now that I think it through, my theory does sound a little far fetched. Then again, how is this a suicide mission?" he said as they all made their way deeper and deeper "I mean, what makes this a suicide mission? The fact that the temple will bury us alive? I'm pretty sure we're better than that." he said pridefully. "There has to be something they aren't telling us. I know this tomb has traps that can kill us, but I feel like there's more." Layton was getting bad vibes from the tomb. He suddenly got a funny thought; "Who knows? Maybe there are ancient monsters stalking us right now." he let out a chuckle. "What do you think, kid?" he asked Jane.
 
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Jane carefully followed the alien down the stairs. Deeper and deeper into the ground. The other human man kept on talking and talking clearly nervous she thought. "What, hu?" she said as he suddenly started to ask a question. She hadn't really listened very closely. "I think, we be fine," she said. "only one way to find out," she added, wishing the man would just shut up and continue walking. "I have been in dangerous situations before but, I always survived so I am sure I will survive this time aswell,"
 
Zoe followed along the others. She stopped stabbing the walls for keeping her poise as she walked along. ''What secrets do you think they kept from us? Air is filled with a chemical that bypasses our gasmasks and starts affecting us longer we breathed?'' She asked rhetorically. ''It is also possible that the cubes produce fatal amounts of radiation when not handled in a specific manner, and this mission is going to result in us dying in the next few days.'' She suggested as an alternative for the plausible secret that they are kept unknowing about. ''Well, if the cubes produce radiation I suggest we have one person carry the cubes at a time and have this person walk in the back and have the rest of us go in the front in a line.'' She suggested. ''Y'know, to ensure not all of us get lethal amounts of radiation.'' She explained.

Zoe looked at the elevator. She got an idea. She pointed at the elevator. ''Can we try get that elevator working manually and analogically? If it works on ropes and ropes are still attached then we could use the elevator and have us slowly move the chains to lower us down the floors.'' She suggested. ''Essentially I suggest we inspect the elevator if it's possible to operate with manual labour.''
 
"No, those elevators have been looted to oblivion, they mostly worked using electromagnets and none of the pieces for that is in the elevators again. Now, they're just platforms waiting to rust." Thea archaeologist replied. They had arrived one floor down. Some old Partnership Commerce machines were here, some of them were cranes and others were large scanners. A few old frozen computers used to decipher the old language and code. The good stuff. They've mostly been abandoned since.

Nuli walked a bit more and took a deep breath. She sighed and noticed something, one of the machines appear to have a giant bite taken out of it. Odd. "Is that bite mark natural rust, or did something try to eat a crane?" She asked immediately. Plus the scrapes on the walls didn't look like it could come from machines, or from any other natural decay.
 
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