"Where? Where is it? I can't see it!" Assuming Kricker knew where the creature was, Jeji hurled her bomb just past the area, hoping to at least catch the creature in the splash radius.
Jeji attempts to throw a bomb past Kricker and the unseen foe in the narrow corridor. It hits something above Kricker though and explodes! The weird tentacled eel-thing reappears assailing Jeji's mind again attempting to plunge the kobold in a realm of permanent nightmares.
Kricker tries to avoid the blast But fails.
The he swings at the now visable creature!
Suffering some burns from the fiery explosion that engulfs the alien, only seems to fuel Kricker's assault as he again hacks into the strange floating creature with his divinely charged great sword. The thing now seems to be suffering from the burns and cuts it has received.
Apparently overwhelmed by the idea that he has attacked his ally, Drahlneep turns his weapon on himself. Whiskifiss hisses in frustration his insane companion and tries to wrestle the weapon away, but fails.
Perrik steps up behind Kricker and casts a protective ward on the priest.
;
Perrik does what he can to bolster Kricker who is apparently the last best hope of the kobolds against the mind ripping alien. Behind him, all is chaos. Jeji begins pounding a bottle of reagents against her head. and Drahlneep begins sobbing helplessly. At least Whiskifiss grabs the bawling kobold and disarms him.
The creature disappears again and unfortunately, its worst wounds have healed enough so that no tell-tale trail of spilt ichor marks its location.
Kricker stands ready to whack the thing if it appears again.
or 13
Kricker stands ready to attack, but the dangerous alien entity does not reappear. It seems to have gone. Its assault has left little physical injury, but the mental wounds are obvious. Jeji stops hurting herself for a moment to begin babbling incoherently. Drahlneep sobs as he allows Whiskifiss to bind him so that he'll no longer be a threat to himself or others.
"Let's get back quickly! Jeji and Drahlneep will need lots of healing to fix their minds from what the void wanderer did to them!"
Yes lets retreat to safety, I do not like fighting things like that, there is no honor to them.
Kricker grouses about honor being an alien concept to an alien, but the kobold-like effectiveness of the Void Wanderer's attacking and fading away while its victims sink further into madness is obvious. Whiskifiss calls Kricker to help him carry Drahlneep who alternates between despondence and ferocious writhing in his bindings. Jeji submits to having her claws tied behind her back and Perrik shepherds her through the tunnel. It is a long journey through Scrapwall made longer by dealing with two kobold casualties and the bright and burning sun is already rising by the time the weary warband finally reaches Dinvaya's gates.
The reclusive inventor welcomes the kobolds back into her tower with a look of concern for the mad-eyed victims of the Rhu-Chalik.
Thank you for letting us back in. We were very successful in the foggy valley, and have some things to show you from there, but on the way back we ran into a strange creature that did awful things to some of our minds. I don't know whether time will cure them or if we will need more of your restorative magic tomorrow. I will plan on doing what I can by my connection to my god is not as strong as yours.
"It was called a rhu-chalik, and it could vanish from sight. If we could have seen it, Kricker would have killed it."
The priestess of Brigh nods at Kricker's plea. 'I am better at repairing things rather than people, but I think that I can help." Both Jeji and Drahlneep have finally fallen unconscious from the mental strain. Dinvaya lays Jeji on her workbench and begins a ritual that ends with a pinch of glittering dust tossed over the kobold. Jeji awakens a moment later looking much calmer.
Dinvaya smiles. "I am glad that worked. Unfortunately, that is all I can do at the moment. Perhaps rest will help heal the rest. I have never heard of this monster. Did it come from the haunted ruins? What happened? Did you recover any other useful TEK?"
I have no idea where this floating monster came from. It ambushed us in a narrow point of the trash heaps. We did recover some things from the haunted ruins though. Kricker shows her everything that they gathered this time around.
Perrik adds a description of the area where they found the TEK, the whisperings of the spirit, and mentions that the fog around the haunted ruin was gone when the party emerged.
The elf hermit listens closely to Perrik's tale. "Destroying the mad ghost may have ended the curse on the place. I wonder if this rhu-chalik had anything to do with its madness." She looks at the flashy red vest, laser pistol and the crystal. "This shirt is a scatterlight suit that reflects ray attacks like a laser beam." "And this crystal. I have seen something like this before. It can be used to affect some machines. You have to plug it in somewhere and it changes how they work."
With that information on their minds, the weary kobolds and their ratfolk companion retire for the day. They rise some time after the sunsets to a breakfast of food tubes provided by Dinvaya. She tells the kobolds that she already attempted to cure Drahlneep this morning, but was unable to help him. He seems to have slipped into a coma and is totally unresponsive.
Whiskifiss looks a little anxious as he asks what the plan is to attack Hellion.
Whiskifiss sighs at the blank stares around him. "Well, I used to be one of Hellion's Thralls. Tk-Tk. I know the upper level pretty well. The only way I saw in or out was through the Arena entrance. Hellion won't come out, but we could try to lure some of his followers out and maybe cut down their numbers. Or i could get us past the door and we could try to take them by surprise. Tk."
Yes, I think surprise is our best chance. I worry without Drahlneep that I will be taking the brunt of the attacks, but we can see if this wondrous mechanical beast that Dinvaya has offered us will be of assistance. Dinvaya, can you tell us something of it and its abilities?
Jeji looked at the shirt with a little bit of awe. It sounded like it would come in handy.
"Would the crystal affect your wyvern?"
Dinvaya says that she can easily alter the scatter shirt to fit Jeji.
"No, Jeji. The wyvern is a golem, a magical construct that I've animated with Brigh's guidance. The crystal only affects true TEK." She warms up for a description of the junk wyvern. "Well Kricker, it's similar to my earlier version which you did defeat, but this one will be even tougher. It can't fly unfortunately. Too heavy. But it can pummel your opponents with its wings instead and I fit a buzzsaw into its tail to hit foes behind it. Oh, and Brigh has blessed it with something else amazing: I fit a broken laser rifle in its mouth and it is working as well! It seems to take a few moments to recharge, but far as I can tell, it doesn't need new batteries. This is really my masterpiece!"
"That sounds like a great marvel, Dinvaya! I will watch it fight as best I can, so I can report to you how it does."
He ponders the crystal, and the priest's words about the strange piece of TEK. "I hope it was left for us by Gakzara, for us to use later."
Whiskifiss says that he will use this night to spy around and see if there is anything else that they might use against Hellion while the kobolds prepare.
Kricker spends some time communing with his God and practicing working with the Mecha-Wyvern.
Whirrr, click!!
Jeji gets to messing with her alchemical reagents while Perrik sinks deep into meditation seeking new spells to aid the kobolds. Kricker tests the Mecha-Wyvern outside in the courtyard. Other than the clank of the scrap golem and whir of the gear gate, the night passes quietly. A few hours before the end of the night however, Whiskifiss comes running back out of breath. "You must- Tk-Tk. You must come quick! Hellion has sent Draigs- Tk-Tk. Draigs the Executioner to kill all the Steel Hawks in revenge!"
"Tell us about Draigs, Whiskifiss."
"Draigs! Tk-Tk! She's a giant mutant with two heads and she has a huge chain she smashes people with! TK!"
[b]"Come on! We will go fight her now. How far away is she?"[b]
Lead on brave rat!
The CyberFang war band does not have far to go. They catch the Lords of Rust gang in Redtooth's territory on their way back to the Arena with a couple surviving Steel Hawk captives. Sevroth stumbles in chains behind a giant two-headed woman in spiked armor. The other two limping Hawks are shoved and mocked by a half-dozen surface orcs. The rattling of the Mecha-Wyvern alerts them to your approach and the giant stops as the kobolds approach. The creature speaks in a weird stereo effect from its two mouths, "LOOK, SEVROTH! THERE THEY ARE. YOUR TINY HEROES. CRUSH THEM INTO JELLY!"
Perrik:
Kricker: ;
Whiskifiss:
foe:
The quick kobolds react first!
Not wasting the opportunity, Jeji hurled a bomb at the two headed monstrosity.
Jeji rushes forward lobbing the bomb high. It arcs beautifully in the faint starlight and smashes right on one of the giantess' heads! One head roars in pain while other yells curses. The nearest orc reflexively jerks out of the way of the falling fire. Whiskifiss pulls out a little gun that you've never noticed before and fires a dart at the shouting giant. The tiny dart strikes the cursing head in the neck. It doesn't appear to do much damage, but the head stops shouting and looks ill.
Kricker readies and fires his grapnel and commands the Wyvern to attack the giant as well!
The Wyvern opens its mouth and shoots fire at the giant!
Apparently opening the mouth blocks its vision somewhat and it misses wildly.
It does lumber forward to place itself between the Kobolds and the foes though.
Kricker fires the heavy, barbed harpoon which sticks into the giant! Apparently, the wyvern's laser needs some recalibrating because the blast goes off at a wild angle. The Mecha-Wyvern clanks up to face Draigs.
Perrik foregoes his usual opening move, opting instead to bolster Kricker's defenses before the iron priest enters melee.
Perrik calls upon ancient lore to bolster Kricker's defenses. The two-headed giant continues howling as one of her heads burns and the other looks sick. With one hand she attempts to beat out her burning hair, unsuccessfully. With the other she swings a massive chain at the junk wyvern in the way. It's a massive hit that dents a plate of metal that makes up part of its torso and sends junk flying
Stepping back a few feet to avoid the orcs weapons, Jeji drew another bomb.
"Kricker, watch out! Stand back!" she shouted.
This time she readied to hurl the bomb into the middle of the orcs ranks.
Jeji preps a bomb and gives warning. Whiskifiss suddenly vanishes from view!
Perrik follows up the defensive spell with a general boost.
Jeji, don't worry about a little splash on me throw the bomb!
Kricker doesn't seem alarmed by Jeji's warning and encourages her to just throw. She does so for a direct hit on the middle orc. Two of the humanoids go down burning and third staggers in pain from the fiery splash of chemicals.
Kricker catches the full blast but mostly shrugs it off.
Kricker drops the grapnel and draws his sword, swinging it at the nearest wounded orc.
and misses but slides forward a step closer to the giantess...
The Wyvern winds up and strikes at the two-headed monstrosity twice.
A twinge of pain from Kricker's burn fouls his attack, but the Mecha-Wyvern pummels the giant with its heavy wings. The mutant goes wild, one side flapping at her burning hair and the other flailing at the scrap dragon with an immense chain. Her hair continues to smolder as the chain rattles against the golem on the forward swing and then thunders down on it with a massive back swing that hits it full on. Parts rattle off the scrap wyvern and it looks like it is about to fall apart!
The three orcs close, encircling Perrik and Kricker when Whiskifiss reappears holding a shortsword bloody from stabbing one of the orcs in the back. It is a mortal wound, but the ferocious humanoids keep fighting. The kobolds work hard to dodge the heavy curved blades that they swing. Fighting for its life, the burned orc takes advantage of Kricker's interest in the she-giant and hacks down with a murderous blow that cuts through chainmail and deep into the kobold's scaly hide.