Thisstle scampers towards the sound of their next foes. She takes a moment to focus herself against the pain coursing from her wounds. With that done, she feels a little stronger and ready to shank more longshanks and rodents.
"Heads up, Hellions! Sounds like we've got more uglies incoming from behind." Hoots motions back toward the door they came through. The avian pistolero then moves back into the previous room. If he see someone coming in, he'll shoot'm. If not, he'll take a moment to reload his pepperbox. The door where he heard the sounds remains closed for now, so Hoots quickly reloads one of his barrels.
Still frothing with rage, Groog turns and stomps back towards the sleeping orc, and buries his blade deep in its skull.
Having played her role in this fight, Dahlia rushes over to Snow's downed form, checking to make sure the big cat is still alive. Thankfully, Snow still lives, even beginning to wake up and regain consciousness thanks to Dahlia’s healing wand.
Thisstle scampers towards the sound of their next foes. She takes a moment to focus herself against the pain coursing from her wounds. With that done, she feels a little stronger and ready to shank more longshanks and rodents.
<< | | | >>
The door to the south slides open, just as expected, revealing another pair of half-orcs and a trio of ratfolk. , both fanatics scream as they engage the group. One of them charges recklessly at Thisstle and swings his scrapmetal greatclub, hitting her upside the head and bashing her into the wall. She doesn’t get back up. The other fanatic attacks Hoots and like his comrade, succeeds in striking a solid blow, but Hoots manages to remain up and standing, even if he’s seeing stars.
The three ratfolk, meanwhile, follow behind their fanatic allies and move more methodically, each taking position at range. Two of them fire at Hoots, but with their allies in the way, neither come close to hitting.
__________________________________
Dahlia waits for hoots to move out of the way before stepping to where the avian gunslinger currently stands and letting loose with another blast of colors and patterns, catching 4 of the 5 incoming enemies in the blast. After this she says "Teacht anseo!" commanding Snow to stay by her side.
Coordinating with Dahlia, Hoots switches places with her. Once he sees the effects of her colorspray, he levels his pepperbox at the nearest standing foe and fires.
________________
Groog roars seeing more people hurting his pets. He rushes forward, mouth frothing and eyes alight with rage, and buries his blade deep in the half-orc's shoulder and chest.
_________
The door to the south slides open, just as expected, revealing another pair of half-orcs and a trio of ratfolk. , both fanatics scream as they engage the group. One of them charges recklessly at Thisstle and swings his scrapmetal greatclub, hitting her upside the head and bashing her into the wall. She doesn’t get back up. The other fanatic attacks Hoots and like his comrade, succeeds in striking a solid blow, but Hoots manages to remain up and standing, even if he’s seeing stars.
The three ratfolk, meanwhile, follow behind their fanatic allies and move more methodically, each taking position at range. Two of them fire at Hoots, but with their allies in the way, neither come close to hitting.
Dahlia waits for hoots to move out of the way before stepping to where the avian gunslinger currently stands and letting loose with another blast of colors and patterns, catching 4 of the 5 incoming enemies in the blast. After this she says "Teacht anseo!" commanding Snow to stay by her side.
Immediately, three of the four caught in the spray of colors are knocked out, while one half-orc remains standing, blinking his eyes momentarily.
Coordinating with Dahlia, Hoots switches places with her. Once he sees the effects of her colorspray, he levels his pepperbox at the nearest standing foe and fires, but misses.
Groog roars seeing more people hurting his pets. He rushes forward, mouth frothing and eyes alight with rage, and buries his blade deep in the half-orc's shoulder and chest. The half-orc staggers, but remains standing due to sheer orcish willpower.
<< | | | >>
The half-orc stumbles backwards, bloodied and only barely keeping consciousness. With as much effort as he can muster, he grabs onto his necklace, containing a rather sharp piece of metal and, holding it beneath his jaw, yells before thrusting the piece of metal up into his jaw and into his brain, immediately killing himself. His request was apparently denied, as the half-orc simply slumps to the ground, dead.
The sole ratfolk up and awake shakes his head at his half-orc ally’s decision and mutters something under his breath. Focusing his eyes on Dahlia, he pulls out a rather vicious looking crossbow bolt with a bolt-head resembling some sort of fiendish creature. He loads it into his hand crossbow and takes aim at Dahlia before firing; The entire room is filled with a loud, inhuman scream as the bolt takes off, flying too far too left and clanking against the railing; the scream, however, caused Dahlia, Snow, and Thisstle’s nerve to falter, shaking their wills down to the core.
___________________________________________
"Ionsaigh!" Dahlia shouts as she steps out of the way. Snow leaps forward toward the ratman, but it dodges his attack, ducking low as the big cat lunges.
-
Continuing his maniacal frenzy, Groog rushes on to the next standing target, the tiny rat man. His blade catches the thing in the abdomen and nearly splits it in half with it's keen edge and the sheer force of the blow.
__________
Fully enveloped in his rage, Groog goes from one unconscious body to the next, cleaving heads from bodies or simply burying his blade deep into their chests. After all are dead, he slumps down against a wall and catches his breath after the exertion.
__________
As Groog goes and slaughters the remaining ratfolk and half-orcs, the others get a chance to properly
examine the room and the gear worn by their enemies.
Heaped before the base of the claw-like statue is a large pile of junk; however, even a cursory search of it reveals a few pieces of interest. Not only are there forty-eight silverdisks, there is a set of what appear to be black goggles with a sleek, streamlined shape. Fitted into the goggles is a sleek, black crystalline strip that can be easily removed from the goggles if necessary. Beyond the goggles, there appears to be another Medlance, a small ink-pen like device, two rolls of shiny gray material tightly wound around a spindle, and most notably, an open-faced helmet made out of some sort of shiny blue material with an adjustable tinted visor capable of hiding all but the wearer’s mouth.
Among the corpses, meanwhile, they find more mundane gear. Each half-orc wears a suit of masterwork studded leather, each emblazoned with a claw-like symbol, and carries a masterwork buckler, a brown access card, two silverdisks, and ten gold each. The ratfolk each wear a suit of leather armor, also emblazoned with the claw, and carry a shortsword, a hand crossbow with ten bolts, a brown access card, two gold, and each are also carrying the same fiendish-looking bolt that screams when fired.
"Didja catch how they all have that claw on their chests? Doesn't it kinda look like that statue there? Ah reckon it's sumthin religious...but to which god Ah couldn't guess.
"Funny that they say they serve Hellion. Wonder if that's their god?"
As he pokes around the claw, Hoots adds, "By the way, Thisstle, any idea what any of these things are?" He points to the various items that he'd discovered on the statue just before this last battle.
"Birdman speak sense. Hellion must be god...or maybe prophet of god. Thisstle will look at stuffs, one minute..."
Taking a few moments to examine everything, Thisstle scratchs her head as she can't figure out what most of the objects do. The two rolls of silvery stuff, however, are obvious. Ion Tape.
Thisstle does her best to explain the concept of tape to the others. Then she confesses to having no idea what the rest of the stuff does.
"Well, let's move on." Dahlia says. "Anyone need another tap of the wand?"
"Ah reckon we should give that room the varmits came from a thorough searchin', but Ah'm inclined to investigate that rumbling first. Ready, Hellions?"
Assuming no objections, Hoots leads the way, gun in one hand and white access card in the other. He'll listen at the door, and let Dahlia check for traps.
Once he has caught his breath from the previous fight, Groog stands back to his feet and walks towards the noisy doors.
Thisstle takes the white access card and heads over to the double doors near the hologram table. "We check here first," she says, swiping the card to open the door.
As Thisstle opens the door, the group finds themselves looking at a short hallway that hums and buzzes with the sound of machinery. Four glowing and flashing nodes are attached to the walls to the north and south, each periodically firing off bolts of crackling electricity.
The room is quite obviously malfunctioning while simultaneously acting as a sort of defensive trap; getting through the room without getting electrocuted would be very difficult.
Seeing the hallway of death, Thisstle shakes her head. "Not this way!" she says, before scampering up into the room where they encountered Hellion's minions and opening one of the doors there.
Seeing a long hallway, she shakes her head again and turns to open the next door instead.
Cushioned chairs and metal tables are situated throughout this small room. To the north are several doors, while a few broken machines lie against the walls. Broken panels cover the ceiling, and mounds of what look like shattered glass have been pushed under the tables. Examining the room, Groog spots what appears to be some sort of broken machine that used to have a large glass panel on the front of it. The glass is broken now, and almost three dozen goo-tubes (in a wide variety of flavors) sit unopened, waiting to be devoured.
Groog promptly takes one and bites through the tube, eating the contents and all, enjoying every bite.
Thisstle, continuing her explorations after finding naught but another hallway, examines another room. The walls of this chamber are battered and dented, and flickering lights on the ceiling give the room a phantasmagoric cast. A mound of rubble sits heaped to the north, while numerous strange containers lie in haphazard piles throughout the chamber. A pair of desks with chairs are placed to the south.
Thissle goes and examines a container.
Groog ambles along behind Little Groog, happily chewing on his goo tube as he goes.
Examining the containers, Thisstle finds nothing of value, the entire place already having been looted by the ratfolk and half-orcs. However, one curious object of interest is a thoroughly battered and beaten locker to the north that, by all accounts, hasn't been opened yet, though not for lack of trying on the scavengers' parts. It doesn't have any sort of color coding on it to indicate what access card might open it, and indeed, there appears to be no touch panel to use a card on it anyways.
Dahlia gives Thisstle two charges of the wand returning the annoying goblin to full health and annoyance. Afterwards she tries to open the locker in the room, first with regular picks and then with her e-pick.
Seeing Lady try and fail to open the metal box, Groog takes out his axe and begins bashing away at it until it opens.
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Groog, happily gripping his falchion, begins to hammer the locker. After a few tries of failing to damage it with his falchion, Hoots stops him and has him take out his greataxe instead. From there its just a few minutes until the locker finally smashes open, revealing its goodies inside.
Inside, the group find two working batteries, twenty-four silverdisks, a fist-sized plastic sphere with a big red button on the top of it, a small pod-shaped device with a red sphere at the end, and a large device that appears to be a high-tech rifle with a small adamantine spike protruding out of the barrel.
Thisstle examines the tech.
Hoots crowds over the goblin's shoulder, attracted by what's clearly some kind of high-falutin' gun.
"What does it so?"
(Two Handed); Damage: 1d8+6; Crit x3; Range 30ft; Capacity 20; Usage 1 charge; Slow Firing, Grapple; Exotic Weapon Proficiency(Firearms)
An autograpnel looks like a rifle with a small adamantine spike protruding from its barrel. When fired, an autograpnel launches the spike with a muffled bang. The spike trails an incredibly strong and thin metal cable behind it. An instant after the spike punches into a solid target, tiny spurs lance out of it, anchoring the spike in place. An autograpnel's cord is long enough to allow the grapnel to reach its maximum range of 300 feet, and the internal retraction motors are strong enough to hold up to 500 pounds of weight. If the grapnel misses its target, it can be rewound into the gun as a standard action; reattaching the grapnel to the gun barrel is a move action.
An autograpnel strikes with an effective Strength score of 22 for the purposes of determining damage. If it strikes a creature, it remains lodged in the target and connected to the rifle and its wielder by the metal cord. This cord has AC 12, hardness 10, and 20 hp. A successful DC 32 Strength check is required to snap the cord. If the wielder retracts the cord while it's attached to a creature, the autograpnel attempts a pull combat maneuver check with a CMB of +16. If used against objects, an autograpnel can pull an item that weighs 25 pounds or less back to the user as a full-round action, or it can pull a heavier object that weighs no more than 100 pounds back to the user at a speed of 20 feet.
When attached to a solid object, the gun's retraction rate can be set to maintain a taut line while the gun is attached to a harness worn to aid climbing checks.
"It's a grapple gun, Birdman. You can use it to climb stuff, or can shoot people with it and then it will stick in flesh and yank them to you. Fun fun fun!" the goblin giggles wickedly. "Take long time to reload though, only good for one time in fight. Probably give to Groog?"
"Looks a bit... expensive to hand to Groogy. Just saying." Dahlia says, shrugging.
Thisstle shrugs and then goes to open the other door in the room.
A multitude of small boxes, discarded wrappers, and opened crates lie scattered throughout this room, along with several empty shelves. It appears to be some sort of thoroughly ransacked storeroom.