"No trouble ... a few animals wandering about, but never saw anyone from the town. You found where this wizard went with Cassandalee, you say. A Smoking Tower .. it is on fire, then? Should be easy to find. Are we ready to head out?"
She look at Razorend slightly askance as he completes his sentence, "Your creation? How do you know? Did you remember it?"
She then looks at the town with a long stare ...
"I don't remember by 'birth', such as it is for us. My first memories are among the Technic League masters, their early attempts to program me as an assassin. I always assumed I was constructed in a lab in Starfall. But inside this ruin, we found an android forge -- I was one of the androids mentioned in the design records." He shakes his head. "I don't know what to make of it."
"What are you thinking?" he asks, seeing Meyanda's stare.
She takes a moment to respond, "I would want to know where I was ... born ... I think. Are you better for knowing? I think I would also want to know who my ... parent ... was. Would you?"
She fumbles through the statement, obviously trying out unfamiliar language in application to herself.
"You two can finish this conversation on the way, let's get going."
Razorend gives Ridic a sidelong glance but then nods. He tosses his gear into the buggy and sits down in the seat beside Meyanda.
Once they are underway, he finally replies. "I'm not sure if it would matter much, truly, but I would like to know who my creators were. Parents, if you like. Like I said, I always thought it was Technic League who created me, but after what we found in there, I can't be sure."
"You don't remember where you were... born?"
Meyanda nods and hops in the driver seat and once given rough directions, takes off to the north east along the river to a ford that you all passed a couple days earlier on the way through.
Moving the buggy slowly through the river, Meyanda then points the buggy at the dark cloud of smoke and rips across the plains for a couple hours.
She slows down as you approach the forest, thick undergrowth and dense trees preventing any entrance and a tangle canopy above makes flying in unlikely as well.
She turns the vehicle to the north and looks for a thinner spot for a bit
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"I remember nothing before Hellion," the android states flatly.
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"Shall I continue to drive around and look for a better entrance or do you wish to enter from here?"
Urgeon looks at trepidation at the forest. "There's something following us in there. Keep moving - maybe we can lose it."
Perception
Let's not enter here, that is a big lizard thing in there.
Meyanda is not moving fast, it appears to moving with effort.
"Yes, lets. Can this thing go any faster?"
<- tries to increase our vehicles available speed.
Oskar Looks around and notices our tail and then fiddles with the speed governor for the buggy, he attempts to adjust the nurdle needle, which theoretically will add some top end speed to the buggy.
Oskar fiddles with the buggy and Meyanda pushes the accelerator to the floor. All of a sudden, a tremendous burst of electricity explodes from the battery and the buggy shoots off easily outdistancing the lizard creature. Careening along, Meyanda is barely able to control the vehicle to keep it from running into the trees. AFter a couple minutes, you shoot by what appears to be an opening in the forest ... trees knocked over and underbrush trampled in about a 15-foot wide swath. A couple hundred yards past that the buggy sputters and whines, slowing down and eventually trickling to a stop.
"Looks like that speed burst sucked the rest of the day's power. We're gonna have to wait for it to draw some more from the sun."
Meyanda dismounts and looks around.
Urgeon nods at Meyanda, "This will do."
He turns to the others. "Let's move in."
When the others are ready, he follows them into the forest opening.
Oskar gathers his gear and heads out. He will try to keep an eye on the treeline the lizard might appear.
"What do you think made this break?" Razorend asks, eyeng the broken trees warily.
As the group advances, he parallels from cover in the trees.
Ridic will follow the others in, staying towards the back of the party.
Looking at the tracks, a group of seven large humanoid creatures came through. At least 10 feet tall and over 1,000 lbs, it looks like they knocked down the trees with large crushing blows to get through
The party follows the path for half a mile, and it generally leads toward the smoke trail visible in the distance.
The party notices movement and hears deep voices up ahead.
"No can smash. Grug and Krod try."
"Ya, got burned. So what we do? Punch?"
"No can punch. Freg get hurt."
"Ya, him burn too. Hmm? Try throw rock?"
The party gets close enough to see a crude camp consisting of three enormous leantos made of logs and sheets of canvas. Among the simple tents is a fire pit and a charred boar stuck on a spit. A metal wheel is jammed onto one end of the spit. To the north, a square of tree branches wedged into the ground form a makeshift pen. At the west end of the camp, a few twisted metal plates stick out from between several large rocks.
You are unnoticed by the two occupants, a pair of filthy ruddy-skinned giant humanoids with sloping brows and bare feet. They wear what appears to be cow hide clothing, with pieces of teeth and bone still attached. They have small tree trunks leaning near by them and they each wear a crude bag slung over their shoulders with vine.
Urgeon motions for the others to back up. He then whispers, "Let's make a wide arc around those giants. No need to tangle with them."
He follows the others around.
Oskar Whispers "Aye, but ye best bet we need te eventually deal with them. The bigger they are, the more trouble they cause"
Survival
"I am with Urgeon on this one, let's be very quiet and get around these two. They are a problem that we do not need."
Razorend keeps to the shadows and slinks away with the group.
The party enters the incredibly thick undergrowth and finds them self slogging along at a quarter speed while trying to move quietly. The giants don't appear to notice anything and the easy view of the smoke from the tower disappears as you enter the canopy.
Razorend looks about, rather lost. "Trackless woods are not really my speciality."
Urgeon points to the smoke on the horizon. "If we keep moving towards the smoke we'll find the tower."
He walks in that direction.
Oskar picks up some grass and tosses them in the air. Then he shades his eyes and looks towards the sun.
He then points and says "The Tower is this way."
Oskar leads the party along until you break out into a small clearing to find your destination, the Choling Tower.
This 220 foot tall towering stone structure rises high above the tops of the surrounding trees. The towers walls are made of metal and stone and stained black with greasy soot, and its roof is a metal cone crowded by a forest of pipes and chimneys belching smoke into the sky. The tower’s few windows are narrow and slatted with thick metal grills, and its only door is a metal rectangle with rounded corners, twelve feet high and nine feet wide. The door bears no knob or handle—only a two-inch-wide hole in the center, the edges of which are cracked and bent as if a tremendous force wrenched something free. A large number of immense humanoid footprints mar the ground surrounding the tower.
Oskar gets the group to the tower. He notices the foot prints, but can't tell anything more about them.
... to find your destination, the Choling Tower.
Razorend is oblivious to the meaning of the tracks.
"Charming place. I'm going to take a closer look. Cover me," Razorend says. He breaks from the trees, treading slowly and quietly as he moves up to the door. He examines the hole closely, trying to figure out what was torn off.
Razorend slinks forward and nothing untoward happens to him. Investigation of the hole confirms that it once housed some sort of opening mechanism, but it’s been broken off the door’s front.
Razorend sees the internal mechanism is a mess an even with the missing part, it would require some jury-rigging to get it to open. There is a path to doing it without, but it appears to be extremely difficult. Magic, of course, would always be an option.
Urgeon will move up and will attempt to jury-rig the door open.
Survival
Ridic will move up and check the area, to make sure nothing is watching us, specifically checking out the windows.
Perception
Assisting Urgeon
Razorend keeps an eye out for trouble.
Oskar steps up to help, but is utterly befuddled by the missing mechanism and what to do about it. Kovax shoves him aside and says "Here Urgeon, let me hold this here for you/"
And with that, the Kellid pops the door open with an angry groan and a hiss of air opening into an entrance area.
This grand hall is ten feet wide and twenty-five feet long. A large metal door stands at the west end of this entry, while three other metal doors stand in the walls at the opposite end. The middle door is slightly smaller than the others, and a metal wheel is mounted in the center of each door.
Ridic will walk in and approach the center door and inspect it. Does it have any markings or carvings? Rusted? Damaged?
Perception
Razorend will move forward with Ridic, cautiously listening at the doors.
Oskar takes a long lingering look at the door lock, then shrugs and follows the others. His eyes dart everywhere.
Razorend searches and hears nothing at the southern door, and then moves to the central door, where he is about to move on before his hand brushes the door and finds it scorching hot. After a more thorough search, he determines the "door" is a pressurized hatch behind which is some sort of hot gas or liquid.
He hears nothing at the northern door as well, so the party opens the north and south doors.
The door to the north opens into an odd shaped hallway. Schematics of incredible complexity, each mounted in an elaborate wooden frame, decorate the stone walls of this curving hallway. The schematics feature images of metal monsters, strange vehicles, and technological wonders. The hall curves north at the eastern end, rising to the upper floor in a staircase.
Through the door in the hallway to the north, you discover dust-covered shelves crammed with all manner of books and scrolls along the walls of an enormous curving library. A large desk, its top cluttered with scrolls and papers, sits at the western end of the room. A metal door leads to the south, while north of it a second door stands slightly ajar, revealing what appears to be a reading nook.
To the south, you find a wedge-shaped room that contains several storage racks and crates, as well as a sickly odor. A large alcove to the southwest contains a wrought iron spiral staircase, leading up.
Two constructs stand in front of the alcove. The whir to life as the door opens.
Urgeon search the hallway and then attempts to identify the images within the schematics.
Urgeon searches the room and then starts scanning through the books.
Urgeon cautiously studies the constructs.
He then cautions the others. "Be careful - these are clockwork soldiers."
"Are they not hostile?" Razorend asks, ready for trouble.
Ridic will search through the crates, while keeping his distance from the contructs. He will be watching them the whole time.
Urgeon studies the hallway schematics and notices a full blown schematic of the digging device that you discovered under Scrapwall that Hellion was trying to possess as well as some kind of weapon similar to the chainsaw you have but connected to a longsword like blade. Additionally some sort of medical incubation device and giant microscope are available. Finally, drawings of some of the things you saw in the caves under Iadenveigh in the android factory and gas chamber are drawn.
As soon as the party enters the room, the two constructs whir to life, clockwork gears spinning as they raise shields and move forwarded with energy charging their warhammers. Tinny voices echo from their bodies.
"Intruders. Eliminate them."
"Nope, not friendly!"
Tie!
Razorend grimaces and moves into action. He runs into the south corner of the room, assuming the Formless Dance as he moves. He sweeps around the corner and slashes his adamantine kukri at the robot there. He edges his blade with temporal energy, sapping time from the target.
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