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| {{WIP}}
| | #REDIRECT [[Revan Saga]] |
| {{Universe|Xanadu}}
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| {{title
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| |name= Part Three of Revan in Xanadu
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| |author=Joysweeper
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| |user=Joysweeper}}
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| ''Hurry, hurry, hurry...'' I had lost any notion of conserving my energy and now ran as quickly as I could without damaging something. I used very long, loping strides with what felt like several seconds of air between each step, and I drew upon the Force that linked all things to urge more and more energy into my muscles.
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| Another twinge of disturbance rippled through the Force. Silently I cursed my armor and my robes; they were slowing me, but I knew that I needed them. The sweat that was emitted by my skin and either evaporated or was wicked away by padding was now not entirely produced out of anxiety; part of it was from exertion. I preferred sprints to marathons, all things taken under advisement.
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| ''But I’ve endured worse. I’m ''about to'' endure worse. If I can get there before something happens!''
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| Fortunately there was little traffic here; everyone with sense - or without my crushing need to ''prevent something'', anyway – had fled, either outside or simply to safer areas. It had been several long minutes since I had last seen anyone. If all went well, they would probably never hear about it.
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| If.
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| I sensed other knots of conflict, other great potentially-apocalyptic forces, around and about me. But they were all either willing to postpone whatever damage they wanted to do or were in the process of being neutralized, either by each other or by forces that opposed them.
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| Apparently, I was one of those forces. The... being... I was after ''did'' have several others resisting it, but they were not doing well. More precisely, they were being killed, one after another. The distraction that they posed this... being... was all that kept it from doing something. I didn’t know what it was, but it promised to be terrible.
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| And unlike the terrible... being... I was after and several of the other great forces, apocalyptic or not, ''I'' was not some demigod descended from on high. I was stronger, faster, in various ways more capable than the average human, and I did have some modest psychic abilities, not to mention extensive training with the lightsaber, but I was only human, and all too easily killed.
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| The only thing that truly set me apart from other humans was my connection to the Force. Not the telekinesis and such that it gave me, but the warnings, the guidance, the insights it gave me into everything around me. But the Force would only do so much. It wasn’t as if it focused on me and only me, after all. Clumsiness or a lack of awareness could easily be fatal.
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| ''I can’t handle this.'' The half-panicked thought returned, and I suppressed it firmly. I didn’t need more distraction.
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| ''It’s getting warmer, isn’t it?'' It wasn’t my armor. I could see the air starting to ripple.
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| ''Something produces heat. A lot of heat. I believe that it is fairly safe to assume that it is my new enemy doing so.''
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| The short, cheap carpet was singed in places. As I ran on, I saw more and more such singes, on the walls and ceiling as well, as if the building was slowly beginning to toast. Trash dropped by frenzied people had also suffered from the heat. I was forced to slow. ''I’m close. Very close.''
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| The corridor I was moving down ended in a "T" juncture. This was it. I turned a left and found charring and evidence of soot on one of the walls, which radiated heat like that of a working starship engine or the wall of an intensely powerful oven. Here the ripples in the air intensified; in response I tongued a control set into my helmet, causing the cooling systems in my armor to start up with a barely-audible whirr. I needed them.
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| There was an opaque door set into that wall. It was very warm to the touch, even through my gloves. When I opened it the sensation was very much akin to dropping into a tank of uncomfortably hot water, cooling systems or no. The heat was a physical pressure on my skin, a distinct and indefinable taste in my mouth. I gathered my will and stepped in as if entering a kiln. My already-dark visor polarized to compensate for the sudden increase in light.
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| ''Ahh. A lava boss. That would explain the heat.''
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| The ...being... was roughly humanoid, although it lacked a neck, and almost tall enough to brush the high, blackened ceiling, which released a slow rain of ash and charred flakes. This room had once held more of those booths and stalls, but many of them had been burned away. Oddly enough, I saw no visible flames.
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| The light fixtures overhead were inoperable, but plenty of light came off of the monstrous "lava boss". Painful, hot, ruddy light, yes, but light all the same. The heat also caused the air to ripple madly, and the floor was giving off a thick, oily smoke, but while wearing this mask I depended on the Force for sight anyway, so it made little difference.
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| The "lava boss" roared in a deep voice, a sound somehow reminiscent of erupting volcanoes and rocky landslides. On its glowing, relatively short legs it staggered to reach for a flying humanoid figure in yellow. The figure, wrapped in a long yellow coat and flying without any evidence of wings, thrust some kind of a nozzle at the "lava boss". White foam flew from the nozzle, hissing furiously. After a moment, I recognized it as a fire extinguisher, and the yellow coat as that of a firefighter who also wore the signature red helmet. The seething lavalike body of the "boss" darkened wherever foam touched it, forming a solid crust.
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| I could see several similar dark patches, but it looked like the still-hot lava around them was softening and heating them, breaking them up into smaller pieces. When the "lava boss" flexed, the crusts fissured, revealing its yellow-red molten interior.
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| ''‘Only YOU can prevent convention fires!’'' I thought on a whim, and then felt slightly ashamed of myself for being frivolous.
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| The "lava boss" roared again as its hand was solidified by hissing foam. It swung wildly at the yellow firefighter, who was knocked aside but recovered, hovering in place again. He cried out something in ringing tones.
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| It wasn’t much of a surprise to see that the carpet underfoot had been reduced to a fine, powdery ash. Whatever was under it had also been burned, to the point that I had no idea what it was, yet the foundations holding the floor up seemed to be intact.
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| For the moment, anyway. There was no doubt in my mind that, soon or late, the foundation would break and the soil would start to burn. One way or another, the lava creature would eventually touch bedrock. Exactly what would happen then, I had no idea, but something – no, not ''something'', the Force, and wasn’t ''that'' a strange thought – told me that it wouldn’t be pleasant. Not as disastrous as what some of the ''other'' great forces would do if allowed to run unchecked, but not good in the least. The world would not end, no. But, at the least, an active volcano would form and start erupting. ''Not something you expect in the middle of the Sunshine State, marring the City Beautiful.''
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| ''I can’t handle this.''
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| The flying firefighter paused to cough hackingly. It looked like he was starting to suffer from smoke inhalation.
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| Whether or not the "lava boss" knew this or not, it took advantage of the coughing fit to swing again. I winced in sympathy; the blow was solid and drove the flyer into one of the blackened walls. After a moment he tumbled out of the crater he had caused and caught himself in midair.
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| ''And he’s still flying. Without wings, repulsors, jets, or any other visible means. How is that?''
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| Finally I noticed that there were people besides the "lava boss" and the wingless flyer in the room. ''Offering support perhaps?'' One spotted me and waded rapidly through the ankle-deep ash.
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| "You hafta get outta here, man! It’s dangerous!" I noticed then that the speaker was a girl wearing a filter-mask who seemed to have a nonhuman muzzle and short, singed fur. Past her the "lava boss" rumbled menacingly at the flying firefighter, adding a certain emphasis to the girl’s warning.
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| "I can see that," I told her, making the extra effort to radiate competence and non-menace. It would have been easier to simply remove my mask and use the appropriate facial expressions, but I didn’t dare. Not in conditions like these. I had no desire to be singed or inhale a lungful of this smoke - tainted air. "I’m here to help if I can. What’s the situation?"
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| "We’re real lucky dat Fireman showed up when he did. Otherwi-"
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| "You’re serious?" I asked, unable to help myself. "That’s his name? ''Fireman?'' Sorry, go on. Pretend I was silent."
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| ''I can’t handle this.''
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| The girl gave me a scornful look but continued. "We already lost three. Dat ''thing''... Ah dunno what it is, but none of us kin stop it. Slow it down, yeah. Fireman don’t burn, but he can’t really hurt it neither. We’re jest here to d’lay it until sommun wi’ ''oomph'' comes roun’ an’ stops it."
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| Behind my mask I frowned. "If.... Fireman... doesn’t burn, what are you lot doing here? Can’t he take care of stalling that thing on his own?"
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| Even before I had finished speaking, the girl shook her elongated head. "Nah. He gets kilt if we don’ help now ‘n agin." Above the strapped-on filter mask, her muzzle wrinkled, one hand making a flicking gesture that indicated something on her face. "Ah wish Ah coul’ ''talk'' proper wi’ this thing!"
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| Taking "this thing" to mean either the muzzle or the filter mask, I decided to ignore that last part. She would become accustomed to it, and then she would dislike me for bringing up the subject. "What works? I have a number of weapons, but I don’t know what good they’d do."
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| "What kind’a weapons?" She asked immediately.
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| ''Should have known she’d ask that...'' "Many. I have a number of... melee weapons-"''swords, quarterstaffs, stun sticks, a few clubs, a Gammorrean axe...'' "- butI doubt any of them will do any good ''here''. I have sonic, ion, and normal blasters – pistols, heavy, and repeaters. I also have lightsabers and grenades."
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| ''Ah.'' I looked through my inventory, scanning the images that flickered across my vision. ''I have too much stuff. Should have sold this a long time ago...''
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| "Well, hackin’ bits offen that thing don’t do much good; dey jest fall’n burn. Ah dunno how ye kin ‘elp, but yer welcome t’ try." I had the impression that the girl doubted that I actually ''had'' any of this stuff on me, and I couldn’t blame her. While things could certainly be hidden under my ceremonial robes and armor, I didn’t look as if I was carting an armory about.
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| ''Wait. How am I carrying this, then? I *have* it, I know I do...'' After a moment I set the thought aside as not currently relevant.
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| ''I just can’t handle this.''
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| Greeting duties done, the girl performed an about-face to stand in a tense semi-huddle with the others in the room, who also wore filter-masks. While we had been conversing, the flying figure... Fireman... had resumed the tactic of zipping around and using his fire extinguisher to cool the surface of the "lava boss".
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| ''This is what I was so worried about?'' I asked myself, half-amused. ''Yes, this thing could potentially cause a major catastrophe, but it doesn’t look like my presence or absence will change anything. This awkwardly-named Fireman may not be able to win directly, but he seems to have a certain indefatigability. He can stall that thing indefinitely.''
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| As if to prove that I might in fact be wrong, the "lava boss" swung its arms wildly, sending droplets of runny melted rock flying. The droplets didn’t hit anyone, and didn’t appear to have been flung with a great deal of force, but that seemed to be accident rather than intent.
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| ''I guess I don’t have anything better to do,'' I thought, flicking through my inventory again. ''What would work best... ah, grenades. What kind of grenade? Not sonic or poison or ion or concussion, I’ll bet... fragmentation might be helpful, but the shrapnel would probably go into things other than my enemy. Adhesive? The package says I shouldn’t use it near open flame, and I don’t know how that would work here. Plasma is a no, and even though a thermal detonator would probably work, I won’t use it. Small and contained or not, nobody likes a thermonuclear explosion. That leaves...
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| ''Cryoban grenades. Of course.''
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| One dropped into my open hand, smacking against my glove; automatically I caught it. It weighed maybe half a kilogram or... just over a pound, a solid weight. The grenade was inactive yet, somehow, in the incredible heat of this room it was just slightly cooler than it ought to be. I knew that I was imagining it. If the special pressurized gas in a Cryoban was leaking, I would be dead, not holding it and thinking about the temperature.
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| ''Use it now, or wait?'' I had more than one, but I didn’t want to waste them.
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| The figure that I now knew as Fireman cried out as the flailing "lava boss" knocked the fire extinguisher out of his hand, sending it spinning.
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| ''Now, I guess.'' Breaking into a light run, I came closer – not in a straight line, but by curving around the two as if spiraling in, kicking up ash with each step. Even so, the heat intensified unpleasantly, pressing through my armor against my skin and eyes and mouth as if it was a physical presence. The filters connecting to my mask kept me from eating the ash; for that, I was grateful.
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| I thumbed the grenade’s trigger, sensing the optimum place to stop as clearly as I saw the "lava boss". Approaching that point, I cocked my arm back and ''hurled'' the grenade with as much power as the Force could give my muscles, sending the solid weight in a straight-line trajectory that ended imbedded high in the "lava boss’s" back.
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| There was enough force in that impact for a small amount of liquid rock to plash out. I narrowed my eyes in satisfaction. I could have levitated the grenade instead of throwing it, but that would have been slower, more difficult, a less efficient use of my resources. Hopefully the grenade could stand the heat... the things ''had'' been designed to combat fires, but...
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| Just enough time passed for me to suspect that the heat had fried its circuitry before the grenade finally went off in a burst of light and sound. Even through my armor, I felt it as, for a moment, the heat was sucked away.
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| And then it was over, spent. Better than half of the "lava boss" was encased in a rough, bumpy frozen shell. Almost as soon as it had formed the ice started melting away, but the creature’s movements were sluggish; the rocky cooled crust impeded it, even though it was already warming and cracking. It batted at Fireman, but this time he dodged easily and was able to recover his weapon.
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| Palmed, primed, thrown; another Cryoban went off, this time at the creature’s feet. The feet and legs were rather slender when compared to the rotund bulk of the body of the "lava boss", and the grenade had more of an effect on them. Somehow the "lava boss" was able to walk on molten legs just fine, but when solidified they cracked under its weight.
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| ''I can’t handle this. It’s ridiculous.''
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| The creature fell, sliding heavily to the charred floor. Seeing more glowing lava stretch and flow into new legs without noticeably diminishing the body it came from, I pursed my lips in annoyance. Evidently this was going to take longer than I had hoped.
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| It did. The colorfully-named Fireman and I ended up with a sort of rhythm. He distracted it by diving and swooping and occasionally blasting what passed for the creature’s face with his extinguisher, which never seemed to expend all of its foam. On the ground, I ran about and lobbed my grenades, which also never seemed to run out. The handful of others in the room didn’t contribute much; mostly, they fetched and carried vast quantities of water from a mysterious source, sometimes sloshing it across the scorched floor, sometimes managing to get it on the "lava boss". In either case it boiled and steamed immediately away.
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| Despite our best efforts, the creature did not seem particularly effected. Slowed, not stopped. We were tiring; it wasn’t.
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| I had no way of knowing how long it took before a man in a white coat resolved it all for us. He just wandered in and, in a clear, dazed voice, said, "I know the secret of the Universe."
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| Somehow that simple phrase, inane though it might be, drew the attention of everyone in the room. I turned towards the speaker, enraptured. I wasn’t the only one compelled to move closer.
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| For the first time, the "lava boss" spoke, its voice distorted but recognizable. "Hwhaaaaut hizzz iht?" That brought me slightly out of the compulsion. I’d had no idea that the "lava boss" was intelligent enough or at all inclined to speak. Or even capable of doing so at all. Maybe we’d been going about stopping it in the wrong way.
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| My attention was recaptured as the whitecoat leaned forwards, the ends of his frizzy dark hair starting to shrivel. He opened his mouth-
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| ''Huh? What? Why am I lying on the ground?''
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| I was confounded to find that my eyes were closed. A flash of light with a peculiar accompanying high whine flicked through my dark visor to strike my eyelids. I opened them, hearing a slightly bored voice reciting words that, by the sound of them, had been repeated several times before.
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| "All right gentlemen, ladies. This has all been a huge misunderstanding. You remember putting on your costumes..." The voice continued, but I stopped listening.
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| ''I’ve got to get out of here.'' Quickly, using my other senses, I determined that there were two humanoids in the room who were up and mobile, staying close together. Radiant heat was still washing over me like hot water, but it didn’t seem as strong now. ''Can I get away? More importantly, can I get away without being seen?''
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| Exactly why I wanted to get away unseen, even I didn’t know. But I had an instinctive feeling that lingering would be a very bad idea. And I hadn’t gotten as far as I had by ignoring instincts and bad feelings. In my line of work, they tended to keep my side alive longer.
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| ''Wait. What?! I don’t even have a job. That’s not right.''
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| Ignoring the niggling confusion, I gathered my limbs under me. My cloak was draped over my body like a collapsed tent, which would help. ''Patience.'' Shrouded by my cloak, degree by degree, I turned... turned... my knees, armored as they were, touched gritty ground. I eased my arms down, armored palms holding my weight as I brought my legs from kneeling to something more like crouching. My muscles ached and complained in this unnatural position, far too close to the ground. I was far more concerned with being seen.
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| ''Don’t notice me. Don’t notice me. Don’t notice me. I’m nothing more than another heap of trash, less interesting by far than all of these oddballs sprawled on the ashy floor. Don’t notice me. Look away.'' I could feel the attention of the standing figures as it flicked, flicked, flicked here and there, over me and away and over me again.
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| My position change had apparently attracted no attention... good thing, too... but actually leaving the room on my own initiative couldn’t be disguised.
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| A plan came to mind, and I grinned under the mask. Why not?
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| Most of the others supine on the ashy floor were just too out of it. Still tranced, maybe by the universe guy, maybe by the flash of light. It would take too much effort on my part to make them react in a satisfactory way.
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| But there was the "lava boss", still spacy but starting to come around...
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| I poked him. Hard. Not with any part of my body – I was neither that close nor suicidal – but rather with a frivolous use of the Force.
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| The temperature rose by two or three degrees and a garbled moan escaped the creature’s throat, instantly riveting the attention of the standing pair.
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| ''Here’s my chance!'' Rather than stand and run, I scrambled on feet and hands away and to safety.
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| ''Now what?''
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| ''I can’t handle this.''
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