Fist leans back and arches an eyebrow at this newcomer.
"Hi their cousin......and your pet pig....what can we do for you?"
Fist offers in a slightly confused tone.
Sarona recoils from Fist's war face in surprise. She is about to reply to his next statement, but is distracted by the arrival of a halfling riding some sort of animal.
"Greetings, newcomer." Sarona tilts her head, looking with fascination at the boar. "You don't need to be so formal. How may we assist you?"
What are YOU? I think this is the first time I've seen a specimen of your size!
I..its a boar, his names Stumpy. Actually, i should say my name too... I am Joseph, a shepherd from one of the outlying towns and i have been sent here to learn more about what has happened here in Torch, why the big purple flames have gone out, and what i could do to help.
Ok so that last bit wasnt entirely true...
Joseph seems to be weighing something in his mind as he takes a puff of his pipe then he blurts out, with all formality dropped
Wasthatanalienlaunguage?Whatareyou?Areyouoneofthosealiensthatcomesdownthrou ghthepurplefirepillarandeatsthesoulsofbadkids?IdidntactuallybelievePawasser iouswhenhesaidthat!
Was that an alien launguage? What are you? Are you one of those aliens that comes down through the purple fire pillar and eats the souls of bad kids? I didnt actually believe Pa was serious when he said that!
Fist raises his palms up with a chuckle as if to defend himself from the newcomers speedy questions.
"woah sloooooooww dooooowwnnnn cousin. Nobody can understand that speed. The town just hired us to find out what's wrong so if your wanting to know about the flame stick around and we might find out."
Fiat offers hoping the boar rider will slow down his speach soon.
Sarona pauses for a moment to translate Joseph's rapid speech.
"...no. I am no alien, Joseph." She finally says, blinking in brief confusion. "I am Sarona Epsilon, a priestess of Brigh."
She gestures to the blue lines on her collar. "These markings indicate that I am an android."
"And Fist's summation is accurate--we have been hired to discover why Torch's fire was extinguished, and to retrieve Khonnir Baine, if at all possible." Sarona winces as she says Khonnir's name.
So your not an alien? ohh. Joseph seems rather dejected that he hasnt in fact discovered aliens but quickly bounces back.
Stick around? Ya i can do that! I can be helpful too and did you know that iamashepherdandthatihavebeentaskedwithprotectingthingsbeforeandIamreallygoo datitandStumpercanalsofightreallywellbutIcant. Can you?
Once again the Halflings voice picks up in speed as he seems clearly excited at the thought of a mini adventure.
Taking another puff, he cocks his head sideways and asks Whos Khonnir? with a tone of concern in his voice.
Fist reaches up and clamps his hand down over the other halflings mouth probably with more of a grip than he intended to.
"I tell you what cousin. You promise to talk slow from now on and you can join us on our little quest. Deal?"
Fist won't remove his hand untill the other Halfling nods yes.
Sarona looks down at her feet, her expression one of worry mixed with desperation. "Khonnir Baine is my adoptive father. He led two expeditions underneath Torch--he returned from the first, but went missing with the second." She looks up at Joseph, her hand rubbing her holy symbol.
Also, roll initiative. You can post out of order, but the events will happen in order of initiative. Also, if you post within 6 hours of the previous poster, you gain a +1 luck bonus to anything done during that post.
Fist looks up at Sarona
"Thats not a normal noise is it?"
springing into action fist makes a bee line towards the screeching noise to see what is causing it.
"What's that awful noise?"
The sound of the scream makes Sarona's 'heart' skip a beat. It sounded like it was coming from the Foundry...
"No. That's..." She takes off running after Fist, her hand moving from her holy symbol to the small hammer on her belt.
Kerin is walking down a side street, his armor making a good bit of noise. He has a greataxe slung over his shoulder this time. Every few paces, he carefully sniffs the air without slowing his pace or turning his head.
When he hears the noise, he starts running. His legs are unreasonably fast for their length, and his armor is surprisingly loud.
With the older halflings hand clamped firmly down on Josephs mouth, he lets out a muffled Sowwy before generally falling beside the two on the way to... Wherever they were going...
Then they heard screaming...
I think that is a very normal scream, but i dont think that screaming is normally supposed to happen, i dunno. Is it? Maybe here is diff.. sorry, shutting up now...
Joseph then urges Stumper onwards while continuing to ride him.
"That sounds like trouble!" Taz says.
He unslings his bow off his back and moves towards the rear of the tavern
At the urging of his heavy Shepherd, Stumper double moves towards the gap between the two houses.
Why did Shepherd want stumper to go to noisy sound? Stumper no like here. People too many. No food! Stumper mood getting foul...
The boar then decides to voice his displeasure as he ran
Grunt. Grunt SQUEE!!
Map. Feel free to relocate your character.
The boar runs to a window, as a brick proceeded to fall off the side of the building, onto it's head.
As you charge in the room, you watch as a robot breaks down the door to the storeroom, it's three spindly legs moving across the ground. It spots Sarona, and walks up to another wall.
Caimor, however, sees things from the opposite doorway, and sees a single robot trying to break apart the table, meticulously, failing miserably and shattering it into a thousand pieces. You then watch as a robot shatters through another window, and begins to tear apart the side of the building.
Caimor draws his longspear from his back and moves a few feet into the doorway, ready to strike against anything that tries to escape.
Taz looks a little confused at the combination of the robots, extra halfling, and the pig. He looks to Fist and asks "Who brought the pig?"
He hesitates for a second and then says "Nevermind ... you handle the one inside, we'll take the one outside."
He looks to Joseph and says "c'mon little friend ... let's save your pig before that thing hurts it."
Taz moves SE,S,S,SE readying his bow and lets fly at the robot on the side of the building.
Sarona takes note of the robot breaking down a storeroom door and focuses on her holy symbol.
"Brigh, Whisper in the Bronze, grant your humble servant the strength to put this piece of wayward technology to rest!" She intones, her hand beginning to crackle with bronze energy. She steps up to the robot and tries to lay her hand on it...
Seeing the robot seemingly attacking the building Fist waists no time running full speed for the one closest to Sarona. Letting out a loud battle cry as his face contorts in fury he rushes the robot and slams his fist into it.
"AAAAAGGGHHHH"
His names Stumper. Wow! what are those things? They look like giant silver spiders! Awesome! And, ahem, we should probably stop them... Stumper. Attack.
Turning to the Longlegs with the hunting bow, Na. Im not too worried about him getting hurt, just mad!
He then bounds off, coming up behind Stumper and patting him on the rump Stumper. Flank.
The brick came tumbling down and while it didnt do much, it did piss off the boar even more.
]Blah blah Stumper! Blah blah blah blah Giant blah Spiders! Blah blah blah stop blah Stumper. Attack.
Stumper heard the prompt given.
Stumper angry. Stumper give you angrys!he might not have done all that much but his annoyance had an outlet!
Then he felt Shepherds hand and heard his next command.
"Nobody puts Kerin in a corner!"
Never mind that he'd run in there himself.
He muscled through the corridor, emerging out of the house.
"Have..." he closed in on the clockwork spider being savaged by the pig, "An." He lifted the axe high over his head, "AX!" He brought it down hard on the metal cerature.
It went wide. The axe made gouge in the dirt. Kerin pulled it free with a grunt.
Caimor watches as the robot makes an attempt to exit the room, it's form twitching, sparks bouncing off of it.
The robot outside crumples under the weight of Kerin's axe, fizzling out.
The robot recoils from Fist's attack, and doesn't even notice Sonoara fail to touch it. It responds rather swiftly, by making a attempt to bash Fist's skull in.
Fists battle cry is momentarily muted as his skull was bashed into the wall right next to him. In what would have been a death blow for most people Fist simply pulls his bloodied head out of the head sized hole in the wall and screamed again.
"I'M GOING TO RIP YOU INTO SCRAP!"
He bellows as he unleashes a flurry of blows
Sarona's efforts to draw the robot's attention went to waste as it turned its ire on Fist, beating on him viciously.
With another quick prayer, she grasps her holy symbol and touches Fist on the arm, channeling healing energy into him.
"Nice job Kerin." Taz says admiring the dwarf's handywork.
"It sounds like there's trouble around the side of the workshop."
"Thanks lad!"
Kerin dives back into the house. The halfling and the half-zombie in the corridor seems to have the metal spider well in hand, so he barrels past them, further into the house in search of a fight.
It seems the suspicious-looking fellow from the town-hall has started without him.
"What's this, ehh? We having fun yet?" he greets Caimor with a grin.
seeing the contraption dismantled Joseph lets out a hoot
Good job Mr. Dwiff!
He then bends down and scoops up a piece and marvels at it, then directs Stumper in through the busted window and around the corner.
Joseph then follows Stumper in through the window and towards Fist and Sarona.
Hey guys! Guess what i found! Some sort of wierd animal but it seems to be made out of metal, what is it? Look see!?
Caimor raises an eyebrow at the dwarf hopping back and thrusting his spear into the robot, taking the time to observe the construct now that it was sufficiently distracted by another.
The robot buckles, and makes an attempt to smash your face with one of it's arms, still remaining fairly functional.
The construct Fists attacks topples to the ground, after making a single attack at Kerin as he charges past
Fist looking seemingly enraged in the midst of combat doesn't let up on the prone robot and wails on him repeatedly with a flurry of blows.
Sarona watches as Fist starts beating on the downed robot before stepping next to the downed thing and praying once again.
Her hand charges up with blue energy as she tries to touch the robot...
If Caimor's stabbing didn't dispatch it, Kerin Swings his axe at the robot wordlessly.
Otherwise he pats Caimor on the back, as he can't quite reach his shoulder. "Good showing! That's how it's done."
The robots are defeated rather swiftly by the attacks. The house sounds empty, except for Joseph, who hears panicked breathing from behind the barrels in the storage room he entered.
[Combat Over]
Sarona sighs in relief as the robot she and Fist are fighting is destroyed. "Praise be to Brigh."
She turns to the halfling warrior briefly before a look of alarm crosses her face. "Val?! Val, are you alright? Where are you?" She calls out, wandering out of the storeroom.
Tazwell puts away his arrow, looks at Kerin and Caimor and says "I lived here for over a year with the wizard and saw some strange things, but I'll tell you that those things are new."
"I wonder where they came from?"
Val looks over to Sarona... And jumps out, and tackles hugs Sarona.
"OH THANK GOD." she stumbles back up, "Those THINGS Khonnir brought in, they just- They just whirrled to life! I swear it's just..."
She lowers down, "I'm sorry, it's just that I'm kinda shocked..." she said, lowering herself down to the barrel, "So, you went to the town hall? These folks are gonna help you find him?" she asked, looking at the party.
"Yes," Caimor says, putting back his longspear now that the danger has passed. "These were malfunctioning but I haven't been able to determine why or how they started up again. They're physically strong but not structurally reinforced. In fact, these ones were vulnerable to strikes at weak spots and to electricity, and these weakness could carry over to others we may encounter."
Caimor states these as facts, gleaned from less than half a minute of observation.
He turns to look at Val. "It would be in your best interest to show us anything else Khonnir brought in before we depart for the cave."
Sarona barely has time to brace herself before Val bowls her over with her hug.
"OOF!" The wind is knocked out of her. When Val asks if the others are going to find him, she nods. "I intend to find Khonnir and bring him home. They will assist me in that endeavour."
Her expression becomes concerned. "Are you hurt?"
She smiles, "I'm fine. Good to know that they were... At least, not that bad. Just malfunctioning. So, what we going to do?"
She looks at Caimor, "That was pretty much it, he couldn't really carry more."
"That's a relief, Val." Sarona sighs with a... well, marginally better smile on her face. She turns to look at the rest of her companions. "How about the rest of you? Do any of you require healing?"
Fist spends a few extra moments continuing to smash his hands against the lifeless robot screaming at the top of his lungs. Once the robot was truely ripped apart and he was out of breath.
"ahhh ahhh ahhh ok that's done ahh ahh."
Coming more back to his senses he joins the party and sees the young girl they have surrounded. He aproches her and wipes the blood from his head as it was slowly dripping into his eyes. He extends his hand in what probably looks like a rather scary greeting.
"hello. You ok? Those metal things attacked you?"
Joseph watches and listens in amusement
Slightly annoyed and feeling left out, he finally decides to ask the question that everyone else seems to know.
Well what ARE they? Are they alive? They seem to have different parts and round bits, kinda like a grain mill, only... Different.
He then hops back onto Stumper and pulls out a piece of cheese. are you hungry? Do you want a piece? offering it to Val.
He also absentmindedly feeds Stumper some
Sarona checks her memory banks for anything relating to the recently slain robots in the hope of properly answering Joseph's questions.
"One moment, please. Analyzing..."