PARANOOBIUS part 4

LV223    From the shadows of the tunnel the  Deacon emerges, like a great black hairless tarantula.      It enters the Urn Chamber, walking  on fours like an ape, ducked to fit through the opening, its limbs long twists of exposed musculature and knobby joints, moving with the mindless rhythms of an arachnid.        Its hands and feet are out of proportion to its body, organisms unto themselves, fingers and toes like black scorpion legs cleaving deep furrows in the soil.  Some digits are missing. The wounds weep. Acid rolls off its flesh in bright clots, incinerating all it touches, random holes opening in the soil and sinking to unknown depths, shrouding the abomination in foul smoke that curls around and through its anatomy, a distorted  mass of knurls and projections like hot wax left to cool in zero gravity. Twisted meat. But it's not meat, not really, it's an imitation, a mechanism, an affront to nature. It is a lurid black executioner of sanity itself.      The survivors kneel behind the Head. None carry explosives, so the Synthetic has recommended rigging a flame thrower to explode, which they are doing.  Numb with fear and hampered by their gloves, it's a clumsy affair. The synthetic does not offer to help. It advises the Raijin to lock down. Too late, 6 more heavily armed crew are already speeding to the Dome.      The Deacon advances, Urns crumpling under its weight, bursting, disintegrating, the  ground turning to a black mud of potent Eitr, absorbing into its wounds.      New digits erupt like fractal roots from the points of amputation, long thin branches of animate tissue, seemingly with a life of their own.       The survivors have seen enough to know there is no hope. They intend to commit suicide and kill the Deacon in one action. As they bend to the task, the Synthetic backs away and turns to the Altar, examines it briefly, and fits his fingers into the glyphs on the outer edge.  A green object atop the plinth like a splot from Fates' caulk gun crackles and fractures, clear fluid running from the breaks. It shatters wetly, brilliant flakes falling away to reveal a squishy protuberance. Being a Synthetic, he touches it.     The Deacon seems to notice the Head. Or perhaps it hears something.      At the center of the confusion of limbs a grimace appears,  nearly a meter across, like no mouth in God's kingdom.  Peeled lips reveal clenched incisors bathed in caustic saliva. With wet cracks the  jaws part impossibly wide as it vomits forth a protrusible mucosa lined with mandibles that yearn outward, regurgitating a shredded Agent. A stew of tissue, bone fragments and morsels of suit spill to the ground. Like an offering.       The survivors see none of this, but flinch at the shriek that follows.        Before the Synthetic a door with strange carvings opens  like a huge blind eye, strings of transparent material  hung in the opening. He steps around the Altar, reaches out to touch the matter.      One of the survivors sees the door open and, panicked, runs past the Synthetic into the room, actually the top of a large pit. The Synthetic makes no move to stop him. With a yelp he slides helplessly down to the center of its only feature, a huge, clear, gelatinous membrane, 10 meters in diameter. He slides on his back to the center as if on ice,  arms and legs spread to arrest his movement, and immediately starts to sink into it like a hot marble in butter, crying out for help. But there is only the Synthetic. Out of the frying pan, and into the fire.    An explosion erupts through the door above, the Synthetic in a protective crouch and shielded by the Altar as flame and debris surge past it.     Weblike strands grow around and into the wailing survivors' suit as flaming rubble strikes the far end of the shaft. The survivor begs for help. The membrane is closing over him. Diamond hard strands are now growing inside his helmet like fungus,   penetrating his skull, his eyes. Immobilizing  him. They turn red at the punctures, spreading outward. Watching, the Synthetic contacts the rescue party.