Booker's shot is devestating, setting the body aflame
When Gig adds his, the creature finally fries... as Gig drifts a bit.
On his way floating by, Gig grabs the cred stick, which registers 470 credits. The azimuth rifle and needler are both empty.
|
With a grunt, Dunklezahn rests back against the cavern wall. He starts working his sore muscles, feeling like he'd carved out this cavern himself after the bites of those creatures. The ache is deep.
Damn, those things were mean. Can't say I won't be happy if that's the last ones we see. I'll be good to go in a minute.
Taking 10 minutes to spend an RP for Stamina.
With Dunk catching his breath, the party looks around. There are a couple of tunnel options, and a real door....
The party checks the door, and determines it's safe. When opened, natural cavern gives way to a fully furnished hallway. Sputter drops a bit unexpectedly before righting itself. This hallways has localized gravity!
It continues for just a very short way before ending in a T-intersection.
"Sure, sure. The drone is expendable." Hack-It punches in some commands into his wrist terminal, and the drone follows R1G5.
R1G5 hears something down the hall to it's right (west), but the hallway takes a turn. Sounds like whirling servos. To the left (east) there is the sound of sparking electronics...
Go to your left, Janzi says over the link. Then, looking at Booker's steely glare at him, he shrugs. What? He asked, I answered. No biggie.
R1G5 pokes it's head around the corner.
In stark contrast to the caverns elsewhere inside the Drift Rock, this chamber looks more like a room on a space station or starship. Rather than the unfinished rock of the asteroid, the walls, floor, and ceiling are clad with finished sheets of some polished, metallic substance, along with components of unrecognizable equipment. Panels on some of the walls flash with lights and mysterious symbols, and an almost infrasonic hum of unseen machinery pulses through the walls.
Instantly a strange robot turns an points at the android... and then engages what are likely blasters. The robot seems to be malfunctioning a bit as it's motions seem erratic.
Round 1:
R1G5: Go
Dunklezahn: Go
Hostile: TBD
Booker: TBD
Torin: TBD
Gig: TBD
Hack-it: TBD
This type of robot is unlike anything you've ever seen, or even heard of within the Pact Worlds.... Still, you think it's some kind of armed defense robot.
Go to your left, Janzi says over the link. Then, looking at Booker's steely glare at him, he shrugs. What? He asked, I answered. No biggie.
Booker eyes the lashunta, then grunts and hefts his artillery weapon.
"It's not just a robot with a laser. It's a specially armed defense robot!
R1G5 blasts the robot, and even more sparks fly out.
You can't tell if it has any special defenses, as it doesn't seem like it does, but those sparks likely come from some type of malfunctioning area weapon.... like it could shoot lightning. You think it might be messed up, but still operational.
Round 1:
R1G5: Hit
Dunklezahn: Go
Hostile: TBD
Booker: TBD
Torin: TBD
Gig: TBD
Hack-it: TBD
Robot: 5
”Be careful, my friends! That hunk of junk looks armed and dangerous! Do you see those loose wires with the sparks? I would not be surprised if lightning comes out of them and zaps the whole area. It’s clearly malfunctioning, but that can’t be good for us. The only good news I can see is that it doesn’t have any special defenses. Almost any weapon we have should harm it.”
Dunk tosses an incendiary grenade down the hall. It strikes the robot and begins burning the metal!
The robot fires its integrated arc emitter , but it's targeting system is on the fritz!
Round 1:
R1G5: Hit
Dunklezahn: Fire in the hole!
Hostile: ATK
Booker: Go
Torin: Go
Gig: Go
Hack-it: Go
Robot: 10 (Burn 4)
Hack-It and his drone move around the bend, leaving space for allies to run through. The mechanic punches a few commands into his wrist console, and the drones takes aim and fires!
Booker slides around the corner with another grunt and kneels to take up a firing position just past the vesk. The artillery weapon thunders again.
Sputter is off target, but Booker scores a solid hit! the robot looks really solid, and it's going to take a lot more to overcome it.
Round 1:
R1G5: Hit
Dunklezahn: Fire in the hole!
Hostile: ATK
Booker: Hit
Torin: Go
Gig: Go
Hack-it: Miss
Robot: 17 (Burn 4)
Janzi heads away from the battle, azimuth laser pistol drawn. I'll, eh, cover the back side here, he says, motioning Gig on toward the fight. You'll be more help there than I will...
"Hey!" Booker glances to his right and sees Janzi walking in the wrong direction. "Hey! Git over 'ere and gimme some coverin' fire!"
Gig peeks around the corner and takes a shot at robo zapper.
However, panicking in the heat of battle, he accidentally fires at the floor instead.
”I’ve got your cover fire, Booker! How exactly does this help you?”
Gig's aim is way off as Janzi closes distance.
Round 2:
R1G5: Go
Dunklezahn: Go
Hostile: TBD
Booker: TBD
Torin: TBD
Gig: TBD
Hack-it: TBD
Robot: 17 (Burn 4)
The charging vesk scores a solid hit, the sounds of metal ringing loud in this hallway.
Round 2:
R1G5: Go
Dunklezahn: Hit
Hostile: TBD
Booker: TBD
Torin: TBD
Gig: TBD
Hack-it: TBD
Robot: 24 (Burn 4)
R1G5 scores a headshot... to what looks like the head...
The robot begins to spark a LOT more. Electricity dances across it's frame. In the blink of an eye lightning erupts, shocking Dunk, R1G5, Booker, and Hack-it. Each of you takes .
Round 2:
R1G5: Hit REF
Dunklezahn: Hit REF
Hostile: ZIPZAP
Booker: Go + REF
Torin: Go
Gig: Go
Hack-it: Go + REF
Reset:
Robot: 33 (Burn 7)
Booker jukes out of the way as best he can, leaving one eyebrow singed. The mismatch makes his growled response more comedic than intended. The artillery laser, unperturbed, thunders once more.
The ysoki and his drone avoid the worst of the electricity, and both fire again upon the robot.
Booker wings the creature while trying to dodge the lightning.
Team Hack-it and Sputter combine their shots and the robot finally powers down, unable to continue the fight!
Now, able to focus, you see that this place is unlike anything you've ever seen in the Pact Worlds. Panels on some of the walls flash with lights and mysterious symbols, and an almost infrasonic hum of unseen machinery pulses through the walls...
Keep up that covering harry fire stuff! Janzi shouts while looking down the passageway to the east. You're doing great!
Janzi readies to shoot any non-ally that moves.
Looking at the walls?
Looking at the symbols?
You recognize them as error messages and warning indicators in an unknown language. It’s impossible to divine the exact nature of the errors and warnings, however, even with magic— there’s simply not enough context or information...
Everyone!
The panel to the Northwest looks like it's been pried open and resealed...
The lashunta eventually goes to investigate the sudden silence, and appears relieved to see that it's the robot, not his teammates, disabled.
Say, this panel looks like it's been pried open and resealed...
Hack-it starts to work his way through, but before long Dunk and Booker combine to tear the panel away.
This small chamber looks like it was once a storage area for spare parts and small maintenance and repair robots, but it is now empty save for the dead body of a human female. When you inspect the body, numerous wounds are visible, but the cause of death appears obvious: a self-inflicted wound to the head.
It's wearing an estex suit I with a brown force field, though the force field’s battery is depleted. The body also carries two spell amps of lesser restoration and a personal datapad (tier 1 computer, but the battery is dead and needs to be replaced). An empty static arc pistol lies on the floor next to her outstretched hand.
Hack backs up and lets the soliders do their thing. Instead he pokes around the robot and area, collecting about 2,000 credits worth of scrap.
"Oh wow, there's some good stuff here," Hack-It says over comms, going over the goods in the room and completely ignoring the corpse. "We definitely want to bring this stuff back to the Hippocampus."
Hack-It looks over the walls and, outside of the panel that was found, comes up empty.
When the datapad from the corpse starts making its rounds, he sees it's dead. "Need to bring this back to life and see what it has." Hack-It balls his hand into a fist and punches Sputter, his offhand catching a battery for the drone's laser pistol mount. "There, you're toothless now," he taunts the drone, who beeps in a way that sounds like... melancholy.
Slotting the battery into the datapad, he fires it up to see what it has.
When you put a battery into the datapad, it fires up immediately, and is completely unsecured. There's only one file, a video recording...
Your curiosity burns, and you PRESS PLAY.
You recognize the Sunrise Maiden as the name of a starship that was reported lost in the Drift in 242 AG. The ship and its crew were never found (until now.)
Hack-It grins, holding on tight to the datapad. "Looks like I own a ship now. First person to help me find it gets a cushy job onboard."
Meanwhile R1G5 keeps an eye down the hall. In the distance is a work area with plenty of lights flashing and machines humming...
Janzi contemplates this development silently, but with obvious interest. After a while, he pulls the Ysoki aside to ask, Just how cushy?