Dako seems one move - oh no - everything moved, that is the ship starting to rattle apart...
The mining vehicle is certainly capable of making an emergency landing safely to the planets surface, but it has no way to control the ship's airlock from inside the vehicle... someone would have to try flip the airlock from OUTSIDE the vehicle and see what happens when the contents of the hold get blasted into space. The big airlock switch sits waiting. Perhaps an Engineer could work something out.
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Aba shakes and rattles along with the vehicle.
"Th-there's g-got to be a way of setting that air lock on a remote t-timer!" she says, as the rattling knocks the air out of her and causes her to stutter a bit. "B-but Aba is here to HELP!" She pulls her toolkit out of her Abadar Corp™ Haulerbot 6000, and all-sixes it as she makes frantic adjustments to the airlock's controls. She shouts at the others, "N-nako, Gaz, Dako! G-get your seatbelts on! This is g-going to be bumpy!"
Remote timer set, she runs back to the vehicle with her haulerbot flying beside her. They both enter the vehicle, and then Aba slams the door shut putting on her own belt. "Th-that d-door should open any minute n-now!"
Then she prays, her yellow brow furrowing. Master of the First Vault, my friends are good skittermanders. They may not worship you, but they enact your principles with their kindness and helpful attitudes. Please, keep them safe.
Gazigaz rushes towards the mining vehicle urging his friends to accompany him. He pats Aba on his shoulder wishing him good luck while he runs past him.
Nako pauses for a second, disappointed that their vision of someone opening the airlock and jumping out into space to catch the mining vehicle has been crushed. She rushes onto the ship and buckles up.
Aba, Gaz, and Nako have now dived into the vehicle and start strapping in... the timer on the door starts whirring down...
Dakoyo is as disappointed that there is going to be no derring-do as Nako is. He doesn't, particularly, want to be involved with explosive decompression, though.
As the timer starts, he scurries to follow the rest, jumping into a seat and strapping in all the straps he can to secure himself.
A tangle of furry appendages, you can barely peek out of the mining vehicle’s one transparent aluminum window as you tumble through space. You can see that what was once your ship is now a twisted amalgamation of two distinct vessels, as if they had collided at a perpendicular angle and became permanently wedged together. Fins jut out improbably from bulkheads and the nose of the space pirate ship protrudes from where your sleeping quarters should be. Suddenly a bolt of purple lightning from nowhere strikes the fused vessels, and they disappear from sight! Moments later, your makeshift escape pod plunges into the upper reaches of the planet’s cloud cover.
The remainder of the descent is a flurry of activity, as you attempt to activate the vehicle’s thrusters and gain control over the fall. Flipping switches, yanking levers, jamming buttons, the safety measures only partially activate: gravity shielding envelops the vessel, plasma turbines slow the vessel’s descent, and the interior is filled with cushioning foam that smells vaguely of ale.
Minutes later, the vessel makes landfall with a cacophony of crunching metal, snapping vegetation, and splashing water. Thanks to the foam, you all weather the impact without harm, but the mining vehicle splits in two and spills you out into a fetid pool of swamp water. The wreckage smoulders and sparks for a bit, clearly inoperable and damaged beyond repair.
Gazigaz frees himself from the belts and tries to leave the wreck of the vehicle that he is in.
"Nufriends! Everyone is ok? Good, good."
He walks towards Aba cleaning his silver armbands seeing if they reflect the light in the proper way.
"That was amazing Aba, what you just did! I never doubted your skills but handling it so well was impressive."
He smiles broadly.
Gazigaz can see you are all in a swampy environment, with irregular hillocks poking from murky water and tall, skinny coniferous trees in every direction. The sky is the color of an angry bruise, occasionally lit by the same flashes of purple lightning you saw while your mining vehicle was plummeting to the ground.
The air on this planet is obviously breathable, if a bit humid, and despite the heavy cloud cover, it is apparent that it's day.
Dakoyo holds his breath as the foam forms, his body puffing up even larger than normal, making him look more like a furry beach ball. Of course, he can't hold his breath for as long as the crash takes and gets a mouthful of it as he gasps.
Pulling himself up out of a puddle when everything has stopped smashing around, he pushes some of the water out of his fur then shakes his whole body, sending mucky water everywhere before looking around.
"This place is nice. Do you think any of our other nufriends made it off the ships before it exploded? We should go look for them."
He gives Aba a hug as a sign of thanks for saving them all before going exploring.
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Thank you, Abadar. We are safe and together. Aba stops praying and accepts the hugs from Dakoyo and Gaz.
After sniffing at the ale-scented foam in her fur, she steps out of the wreckage and into the swamp. "That mining vessel was very safe. It must have been made by AbadarCorp. I'll have to give that product a good review."
She looks around the vehicle one last time to see if there any parts she can salvage.
"Dako, you have the best ideas!" Aba exclaims. "If we're looking for other Nufriends, maybe we can scan for their signals. They could be lost! Hurt!" It does not occur to Aba that her team could also be lost. After all, they're all together, and healthy. She moves around the pretty if squishy swamp, trying to scan for activity, all the while keeping an eye on that lightning storm.
Aba doesn't notice much else in the area, but does spot (in the wreckage) an emergency supply kit that holds an industrial backpack containing two space suits (with their environmental protections still charged), eight R2E pouches (enough for the four skittermanders to eat for the next 2 days), and a dispenser of bonding epoxy.
Using their comm unit Aba also detects a bit of strange interference less than a mile to the northwest; this isn’t a naturally occurring phenomenon.
You can sense a disturbance of planar energy less than a mile to the east.
"Oh, no doubt it is divine inspiration. The gods speak TO us but they also speak THROUGH us sometimes," Dakoyo answers Aba's compliment.
"There's some sort of extradimensional disturbance this way," he says, pointing east. "But it's a little farther away. That's probably not our nufriends but it might be interesting to see. Maybe it's why we went from one ship to two ships to no ships."
Gazigaz listens to his more educated nufriends saying:
"Planar disturbance I was wondering about that."
"Hey my armbands shine as new, I am ready to go. If we meet any nufriends let me do the talking, there was not an alien whom I was not able to benufriend."
Gazigaz says that with confidence looking towards where the sun should be allowing his cape is moving on the wind.
"Let us go and check the closer one. Maybe our nufriends are there, with a ship, and some food..."
Says Gazigaz beginning to chew on the first food ration. You know him well enough to know that he eats when he is stressed.
Dakoyo falls in line behind Gazigaz. "You're right. Nufriends wouldn't be at weird energy reading."
You all push off across what turns out to be swampy terrain, and the going is quite difficult when moving through the brackish water.
A small metallic plinth stands on a patch of dry ground, partially hidden by shrubs and draped with a netted fabric meant to resemble a carpet of moss. The camera and recording equipment attached to the column occasionally emit a distressed beep. Part of a fallen tree lies next to the machinery.
A small group of three creatures made of rocks and mud appear to be beating on the metal plinth.
"Greetings from the gods, nufriends! What is that thing you're hitting? Also, why are you hitting it? Also, is it your thing? Also, I don't think hitting it is good for it," Dakoyo calls out when the tableau comes in sight.
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"Oh no! They are wrecking that beautiful equipment!" Aba is quite distressed about this.
"Nufriends, wouldn't it be better to not hurt the equipment? I can teach you to fix it instead!"
If they talk, she does not shoot. If they continue to destroy equipment, she says, "Team, I'm going to shoot -- but non-lethally. Okay?"
Aba picks whatever rock-thing looks the most hurt, and shoots.
Dako and Aba try communicating with the creatures who seem unresponsive.
Aba works out they are Earth Elementals, and they seem very set on destroying the BEEP BEEP BEEP machine.
Dako tests the water with a stick and finds it about waist height.
"Earth Elementals! I never had an earth elemental nufriend before."
Gazigaz turns towards the 3 creatures calling:
"My dearest elementals, we have some very tasty rocks over here. How about you come and we will serve them for you?"
Gazigaz looks baffled: "I am not sure if this is working. Maybe they don't eat rocks...." He wonders. He begins waving and calling the elemental hoping for a reaction.
Dako looks around at the others. "Maybe they can't hear us. They're making a lot of noise over there, after all, what with banging on the BEEP BEEP BEEP machine. I'm going to get closer."
And he does just that, wading into the waist high water, raising all six of his hands up so none of them get wet.
"I don't think that thing is your thing. You should not break it.
Bad elementals! Bad elementals! Very naughty! Stop that this instant!"
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Gazigaz lifts his cape and holds it above his head. "I don't want it to be wet. It doesn't look so nice."
He enters the water after Dakoyo and Aba trying to go to the other side.
If we go through the water I put Gaz avatar on the other side
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Nah mate, you'll be right, just head on over no worries...#crikey
You cross the water and the elementals are solidly pounding on this strange machine - you think it will likely be beyond salvage shortly!
"Hey! Ignoring people and smashing things is not the way to make nufriends! You need to learn some manners!" Dakoyo shouts at the elementals.
He is so frustrated by their rudeness that he flings a bit of debris at the closest one (purple) with his mind.
Click, whirr
Nako realizing the rest of the team is getting themselves in trouble, double-moves forward.
Gazigaz joins the shooting party and aims at purple
"Aim at its abdomen, or where an abdomen should be. It looks like the least movable part. "
Gazigaz aims carefully and his electric charge hits the elemental.
Dakoyo
Gazigaz
Nako
ABA
ENEMY
Dako fires off a bit of debris - which wooshes past the elemental (does get its attention though!)
Aba gives the angry rocks a few bits of lead!
Gaz gives the same set of rocks a zap to go with the lead!
Nako hustles forward.
The elemental hustles forward and tries to wallop Aba!
Attack vs KAC
Damage
The other two whack massive dents into the beep beep machine!
[R2]
Aba
Gaz
Dako
Nako
P 19
Gazigaz takes another shot at the purple enemy
"Keep shooting nufriends! Keep shooting at the closest one!"
Purple falls into a shattered pile of rocks!
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Dakoyo is at a loss. Gazigaz told him to get the purple one, but now the purple one is broken so it doesn't seem like getting the purple one is a good thing to do. He doesn't want to upset Gazigaz though so he comes up with what he is sure is a clever compromise.
Using the power of his mind, he picks up one of the rocks that used to be the purple thing and hurls it at the blue thing.
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Dakoyo's cunning plan was an act of genius. Using a piece of one formerly-angry rocks to help 'calm down' one of the other currently-angry rocks is a masterstroke, the fact that the rock misses and instead lands somewhere off in the swamp with a loud sploosh simply means no rocks were actually harmed in the making of this action. Of course, this ALSO means is that there will be one less rock to make pet rocks with afterwards.
Click. Whirr.
Nako charges Green!
Big mean green mossy rocks tries thwacking Nako!
Attack vs KAC
Damage
The other one whacks another dent into the beep beep machine!
[R3]
Aba
Gaz
Dako
Nako
P 19
G 11
Nako smashes the one next to her again.
Gazigaz throws a stone at the rocky thing hitting the device:
"You leave that alone! Drive it away from that flashy device that Aba likes!"
Nako thwacks the rockpile into submission.
Gaz manages to dent the other one!
B 3
"No hitting Aba! Hitting is not nice!" Dakoyo declares as he rushed past his fellow skittermander and takes a whack at the last pile of moving stone with his staff.
Dako gives the rocks a return clobbering, but Aba can see the machine is damaged well beyond her immediate capabilities - this job is going to take a bit.
The rockpile whacks back at Dako!
Attack vs KAC
Damage
[R4]
Aba
Gaz
Dako
Nako
B 10
"Hey! No hitting me, either! Hitting...is...not...nice!" Dako exclaims as he avoids getting a stony fist in his soft fur.
To make sure the rocks learn the lesson this time, he swings again.
"Dakoyo, look out for the blows. Hit it with that staff! Use your allsix!"
He moves a bit to the side to have a better angle to shoot and after a short aiming he takes it.
Dako and Gaz both pile on - but the rocks are still rolling!
B 18