|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
|
 Recent Posts
Unmodified D20 to test Fort save: 1d20=7
Roach's weapon cuts into the sleeping mutant bear's skull, splitting it like rotten wood. A vile-smelling purply stringed liquid oozes from the brain cavity, alive with small tadpole-looking white creatures. The bear snorts loudly, twitches, and dies.
So roll damage, critted and I'll roll the bear's Fort Save
The bear collapses in mid-gallop, its huge body plowing into the leaf litter the few last feet until it comes to a complete rest, snoring thunderously.
The group reforms, E.V.A. examining the rent in her clothing and her bubbled synthskin with a somewhat bewildered eye. Billy Ray sloughs off his ruined skin, a new layer already darkening to a bluish hue. The group walks farther into the valley. The trees thicken, and the fungus grows thicker as well. They hear another of those huge coughing roars right ahead of them. Out of the darkness a nightmare walks. It was once a bear, a huge two-headed mutated brown bear, but a bear nonetheless. Now it is something more and less: The group can see the bear's fur is patchy and that on its pallid skin mushrooms and fungi balls cluster. One head is almost entirely engulfed in fungal growth. The lesser infected head stares balefully at the group and roars a warning at them, rearing up to an impressive 15 feet and pawing the air. It lands with a loud thud and begins to charge.
Chiro can see that the tracks of the people lead along the cleared area surrounding the embankment farther into the narrow valley. He finds a single homemade shoe left abandoned in the dirt by one set of tracks. The prints leading from the shoe continue on, one foot shod, one foot bare. As the group searches about, they hear a distant coughing roar. It sounds like a bear. The roar is met with weird shreiks and hoots, the likes of which the group has never heard before.
The nighttime fungal forest regains its quietness, except for the howling of Coca as the pudding acid eats into him. The other two affected feel a slight twinge of pain as the acid finally exhausts itself Coca Damage: Secondary: 1d6+2=4, Tertiary: 1d3+1=2 B-R tertiary dam: 1d3+1=3, E.V.A. tertiary dam: 1d3+1=3
Billy Ray's second grenade explodes square in the middle of the three fungi remaining. The force of the explosion rips the two previously wounded creatures apart in a spray of gelid goo. Coca aims Nixon at the last wailing mushroom, but the large gun ends up taking out a more sedentary fungus in back of the mobile purple one. The final fungus belches another jelly glob out of a quivering orifice in its head area. The purple missile heads for Coca. The purple pudding missile smacks Cocaman and spreads out. He immediately feels a burning sensation and his torso begins to smoke as the acid eats into him. Billy Ray feels the acid from the previous missile still eating into his warty hide. E.V.A. also seems to be smoking, and not in her usual way.
The remaining three purple fungus monsters begin to move forward. The party can hear an odd popping sound from their position. Suddenly, small oval pods begin to descend from above. Billy Ray: 1d20+3=15, E.V.A. 1d20+3=20, Coca 1d20+3=8 The quivering jelly pods smack into E.V.A. and Billy Ray. One aimed towrds Coca hits a nearby mushroom, which begins to smoke. E.V.A. 2d6+4=8, Billy Ray: 2d6+4=15 The purplish jelly pods spread out like dropped pudding on E.V.A. and Billy Ray. Billy Ray feels a burning sensation as his skin begins to smoke. It's not fire, but a acid burning feeling. It stings like all get out. E.V.A. twitches as the jelly burns through her clothing and torso.
Roach approaches warily, keeping his revolver at the ready. The creatures are moving slowly, ripping small feeder roots from the ground and using them to drag themselves along. Chiro’s Ak-47 lets loose a burst of bullets, hitting one of the tentacle horrors in its center mass. Gouts of noisome neon goo erupt out of its farther side. Billy Ray whoops and throws a grenade at the purple fungus creatures. He scores a direct hit, the explosion tossing the creatures about and causing them to emit a high-pitched screeching. The creature that Chiro had wounded crumples and falls apart, a blue-purple liquid gushing from multiple holes in its slimy hide. E.V.A. aims her crossbow and fires, striking one of the wounded fungi . The bolt sinks deep into the creature, and a stream of liquid spurts from the hole. The creature deflates slowly, stopping in its tracks. The rest of the fungi shreik and begin to move forward to your position.
The car is just off the faint embankment lines. There are ample paths to it, and just a few gelid-looking fungal growths on the ground. The car itself has sheets of the tree Spanish-Moss fungus shrouding it. Coca can spot in the thick leaf mold by the car several whitish items. They resolve into old bones.
The group starts to walk quietly into the dark fungus-covered forest. Coca points out the remnants of the mass transit line. As they head further in another clue resolves itself. Off the embankment about a quarter mile in is a crumpled railcar. It seems quiet, and the rusting on it seems to argue that it has been here for quite some time.
The crumpled car seems to be covered in a tent of fungal growth. The party can see that the fungal infection is increasing all around as they go farther into the vale.
The narrow valley branch is thickly forested. Chiro knows he saw the people move into this area before losing them in the forest cover. He flies up, but the area becomes more and more impenetrable as he ventures up the vale. He doesn't get a bead on the people again. Coca Man looks around, but in the dark it is hard to see any other way in or out. The valley walls are sheer and gnarly pines stud the stony sides. Travelling around would be difficult. E.V.A stands stock still, then turns to the others. "I have computed the best option is to have me advance ahead as I am synthethic, and if there are harmful biological agents I should be immune. Perhaps Billy Ray can follow closely in case of a physical danger as his constitution is excellent." E.V.A. awaits your replies
Roach has never seen these types of fungi before, but one looks to be some sort of mutation of Ganoderma applanatum, or bracket fungus. It has a much more albino, squishy look than standard bracket fungus, of which many are excellent trail rations. These versions thickly cover the tree trunks here. There are also mutated examples of the Amanita muscaria 'toadstool' mushrooms sprouting about, these ones having vivid sickly hues of violet and chartreuse. There are also sheets of whitish blue Spanish-moss looking strands hanging off the surrounding higher branches of the trees. None of the group has ever seen anything remotely like it. All the trees here look rather sickly. The smell of rot and decay is thick here.
Coca's time as a scavenger comes in handy as he sizes up the scene. The area has gone wild quite a bit, but bits and pieces of junk and the way the ground is shaped under all the vegetation speaks to Coca that there was some sort of mass transit that once moved through here. Could be a train, could be a maglev, something that needed a fixed track. Coca can still see the faint outlines of where the track would have been laid. Coca has also smelled this kind of smell before. There was a huge fungal growth in the upper sewers of Nu Ork that smelled this kind of rotty nasty. It was also if he remebered rightly, quite poisonous.
The crirruping Chiro flys tirelessly back and forth, leading his friends towards the distant walkers. They travel along the Deerf River, then they come to a side channel with a sluggish stream that feeds the main flow. The trees get thick here, and there seems to be a lot of decay and fungus on the wood. The water in the stream smells off, like it was tainted with something. Chiro loses the walkers as they head deeper into the narrow valley.
Larcifer:
Spoiler:
I sent you an email under Spamreef[at]hotmail[dot]com An investigation of the clothing reveals that most of it is stained and faded farm-type wear, about par for the course in refugees. There seems to be five sets here: four children and one female adult. Chiro remembers the group washing he saw from the air and if he remembers correctly this is where they were. The clothes are also sprinkled with some greenish substance, almost like the consistency of pollen. Chiro flys off to investigate from the air. Chiro
Spoiler:
As you fly off, you search the area from where you saw the twitching figure. You echolocate what seems to be a distant group of people walking further upriver. They are distant so you are just getting the barest outline, no detail, but there is definitely more than one walking. The group at the river discover a trail of footprints moving upriver. Two sets wear adult-sized boots, one is adult bare feet and four separate smaller barefoot tracks can be discerned.
The party makes its way down to the Deerf River. The loose scree shifts underfoot, and Roach has a few moments where it feels like he going to pitch over, but he manages to keep his balance. The darkness is thick, and the air is filled with the sound of rushing water. The Deerf River is narrow and swift, but there are small areas where eddies form slower pools. Chiro soars overhead, chirruping his echolocation.
As the last bit of light fades from the sky the group discusses the information Chiro, Roach and Billy Ray collected. Coca strolls back into camp a bit later, a big cheezy grin on his face. When asked where he's been he replies laconically. "Got my gun oiled." The rest of the folks at the campfire bring him up to speed as they eat dinner.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
