There aren't a lot of mass effect core accidents. At least not anymore. They say that you're more likely to be struck by lightning, that the core on your hoverbike is 99% safe.
Based on the explosion, Garrus figures this is the 1% of the time that you're not supposed to think about.
He picks himself up off the ground, checks the hoverbike. (Wrecked. Obviously.) Checks his guns. (Fine.) Checks his surroundings.
This... isn't Palaven.
In that case, they wrap up the talk with Hanan (who is busy calculating things) and go to their guild's scribe to draw up the contract's details.
Soon enough, they are ready to leave. Only Tempus knows about the exact details of their plan and their destination (Auria complains this is too much secrecy). But the first leg of their trip is done by following a trader caravan.
The caravan is headed towards Minorus Town.
"Oh, hey, that's where I landed on this planet," Garrus comments idly.
Tempus nods thoughtfully, but does not comment.
Various people attempt to make conversation with Garrus during the trip. Including the other members of his expedition.
He's not much of a conversationalist, but he answers questions truthfully and responds to small talk with appropriate noises.
He isn't the first mage-for-hire without social gifts. The journey proceeds mostly quietly.
They need to cross a ravine as a shortcut. It's not complicated, but a bit tedious process because the beast of burden have to be through the air carried and calmed down. This takes long enough that the sun sets.
They attackers use this as a cover. Starting with a wave that blurs everyone's sight. Auria dodges the effect, Garrus doesn't. Hard to tell who did.
Garrus takes to the air immediately and sees if he can get around the blurriness with some quick visor adjustment.
The blurry doesn't go away, but changing visor settings target tracking. Auria is helping people flying down without hurting themselves. She suddenly dodges something that Garrus couldn't see, but came from one of the attackers.
...oh yeah, target assist. That's a thing. Garrus usually leaves it off these days, because monsters confuse it. But right now, it seems like a good idea.
Garrus isn't 100% comfortable just killing people, even if they are bandits. So he sticks to crippling shots with concussive rounds, blowing out an ankle or a knee at a time. Fuck you, and fuck you, and you in particular, he thinks, catching the man who threw something at Auria directly in the kneecap and rendering his leg digitigrade.
Well, now their attention is on him. Notably, there is a spherical volume of increased heat around one of the attacker's hands.
Now would be a bad time to find out that he can't eat that.
Unfortunately, sniper rifles are not super great at taking out multiple enemies quickly, or swinging around rapidly to target someone who is currently throwing a fireball at you, especially while flying and relying entirely on target assist. He misses.
He can eat some of that, enough that he survives and doesn't lose a shape (he is hurting a lot). And he can't eat the shockwave when the thing detonates. He thrown away.
As a slight piece of good news, whatever was happening it had a range limit. He can see now.
Ow.
He cloaks and returns to the sky. With a twinge of conscience (and significantly more of a twinge from his broken shoulder) he shoots the mage in the head. Too dangerous to leave alive and crippled, with a power like that.
Still cloaked, he starts in on the remaining bandits. The increased distance means nothing in the face of a high-powered sniper rifle. Shoot, breathe in, breathe out, shoot, breathe in, breathe out. It's not long before the entire raiding party lies on the ground in various stages of ruin.
When you shoot a shifter in the head their body tries to save itself by shifting into other forms. The wound opens again and it's like seeing the person being shot multiple times.
But the important thing is that the man is down. And so are his fellow bandits. One appears to survive without a head for two seconds, but then his body burst into flame, which shocks everyone for a second. But soon the party is just a pile of remains on the ground and people pick themselves up.
People are picking themselves up. Many are removing their clothes, forsaking modesty to change into less harmed forms. Auria is dressed and unharmed, she managed to get some people out of the way.
"I am okay."
"Fuck these bastards," Tempus says, he is mid transformation and it's hard to figure out how hurt he is, given that half of his skin is melting away.
Some people are variously injured: a total of two lost limbs, three lost forms, and one new mage with the power to create telekinetic tethers. Also a lot of damaged goods. The less hurt travellers are trying to calm down the scared animals.
"Bandits are the same everywhere. Next time I'll be quicker on the trigger."
Garrus has no particular facility with animals or medical care, but he can take a look at the damaged goods and see if he can make some repairs.
There are various bits of cargo-holding objects that would benefit from a bit of glue here and there. Some are sufficiently hard to salvage that he really shouldn't bother and no one holds against it for not doing anything about it (Nor they are aware of the option).
People pick up their pieces and make their way to the town's shelter. Tempus' mage guild is going to have a chat with the local mage guild. Garrus can tag along, though Tempus would rather they didn't mention anything about their little exploratory mission.
Garrus will defer to Temple. “Is this just a temporary setback, or more of a ‘good show everyone, better luck next time’ deal?”
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