Haluk stares in disgust at the goblin that can't even control a scorpion.
The green scorpion goes limp... seeming to have fainted. The two legs behind its pincers seem to be kicking gently in a swimming motion.
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Retzack looks on at the automaton with a mixture of fascination and odium. Curiosity eventually steps in to the fray and some questions come out.
"Greetings," he says, with a calm yet demanding tone. "We are protectors of the guh-nomes! State your name and function!" Was the lie clever enough? Would such commands be attended to? Well, if the metallic thing is at least an abomination against nature that alone would be a reason to investigate it further.
With the scorpion going limp, Groonk can fully embrace it now, hugging it tightly as the limp tail flops above him. He finally takes notice of the strange machine... having forgotten that his original intent was getting to it.
"You talk to Groonk?!" he blurts, clearly shocked. "Is there something living inside of you? Or is this trick?"
The gnome turns to look at Retzack when the dusky goblin addresses him, and is about to respond when it jumps back in shock at Groonk's sudden shouting from the floor below it.
Composing itself, it responds in its strange tinny voice; "Designate Service-Bot Reporting As Requested! What-is..." as it talks, its voice becomes slightly smoother, less jerky. "the problem? I am here to h-h-h-h-help," it finishes, glitching a bit toward the end.
It turns its head to face Groonk, responding in the order that it was addressed. "Talking is one of my many functions," it comments, continuing, "including scouting, retrieval, repair, infiltration and din-din-din-din-dinner party hosting," it finishes, before standing at what appears to be a ready position. You can hear machinery parts quietly whirring inside its body.
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Retzack is deeply intrigued by the machine. Could this be used to some purpose? Surely a thing of Corruption can be tolerated if it is used for the right purposes? How can that possibly go wrong?
"You seem damaged, Service-Bot. Are you able to repair yourself? Are you mobile? And are you willing to serve me without question or hesitation, as your rightful Master?"
This was all from the standard oath that his acolytes took. If the bot was not even worth a follower, it was worth no more thought.
And what was Groonk doing with that scorpion? It's known that the brute had odd...tastes, but surely random jungle monsters was a step too far?
Ah, well, who was he to judge about what was too far?
Talks slowly begins to react again. The world was... spinning. Spinning dizzily. Like, everything was moving at once. Had she eaten Wooshrooms again? No. No... just a scorpion. A very good facsimile.
Okay. Okay. So it was more like she was trying to concentrate on things she couldn't understand. Do scorpions have eyelids? Apparently not in a way that lets her shut off all of the different sets of vision that she was getting. Ugh. She was being held... lovingly... by Groonk. And there was a gnome machine thing that was talking to Retzack. Oh, it had better not take the master option. Retzack was showing that monstrosity all the wrong kinds of attention. She could tail. She began making small hissing noises in the direction of the gnome.
Groonk is wildly fascinated by this thing... how can it speak to him?! But then the scorpion in his arms starts hissing at it.
Feeling a rage build inside of himself, he releases the scorpion to do as it wishes, trusting its judgment. If this thing makes the scorpion uncomfortable, then it's no friend of Groonk!
"So... trick?"
Rather than attacking the gnome-bot, Talks scampers off to Retzack's side. Errr, ahem. Skitters off. She'd narrow her eyes if she could figure out how to do that. She would destroy this minion of civilization... but she would do it in her own time, via sabotage. No sense in making Retzack-sempai hate her.
The gnome's head abruptly pops open, and a whirring helicopter blade contraption pops out of it. It spins at terrific RPMs, sending breezes scattering dust everywhere in the ruined room. The gnome lifts off, floating about a meter off the ground and zooming around to look at everyone in turn. However, its gyroscope falters, its mechanics uncertain, and the gnome crash-lands in a heap in the corner of the room. It's facedown, and there's a blue light blinking from its face. It doesn't move.
The hissing sound stops from the scorpion. Scorpions are less good at showing elation than confrontation. The emerald scorpion has seemingly won without any difficulties! It ambles up to the gnome... and pokes it with a chitin-covered claw.
The metallic gnome rolls over as you nudge it. The words REPAIR are flashing over its eyes in blue light projecting an inch from its surface.
Haluk stares at the metallic creature and debates if hitting it with his mace will reset it or not. It usually worked when dealing with his acolytes.
"It would seem that there is absolutely nothing that can be done for the evil home-wrecker, we may as well just move along, rather than be bothered with such a thing. It can't do anything I couldn't do better, anyway." Talks would have said, but as a Scorpion, the only thing that came out was a bit of hissing, asynchronous blinking, some claw clicking... And a few zig-zags with claw-snaps.
From off in the distance, coming from deeper within the ruins, you hear a rumbling sound, the rolling thunder of treaded wheels. The building around you is shaking and loose masonry falls down among those of you standing within the building. The fodder goblins, after laughing at one of their number for getting smacked in the head by a cinderblock, evacuate the building and gaze around themselves nervously. What do you do?
"Let us find this new abomination and sacrifice it to the gods, for they demand sacrifice."
Talks was a happy little Scorpion. But then came the rumbling. And it wasn't even in her belly! It was -scaaaary-. And by scary, we of course mean curious. She looked around for something to climb to get a better view so that she could see the surroundings! Even with her weird bug eyes, she can surely still see -that- far!
The most obvious thing to climb, was the wall of course! It was broken enough for her clack-clacks to fit into, and her clap-claps could surely grip something! So she set to climbing!
The rumbling sound condenses into a four-legged walking sound as it gets closer. Tutti, no need for a roll there, you're able to climb the ruined wall fairly easily without needing to defy any danger. From your vantage point, you can see this walking down the road from deeper within the ruins. A flashing blue strobe is pulsing on top of it, giving it the appearance of an emergency vehicle. On its strange four-legged gait, the mechanical machine approaches straight toward you without appearing to have noticed you yet. It stands about 7 feet tall, 9 if you include the bunny ears.
Talks scrambles back down the wall slightly, and then points her tail towards the approaching machine, to show them which way it's coming from. If they listen. Maybe.
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Retzack is momentarily distracted by the gesticulating scorpion. What is it doing? Is it going to attack?
In time he just ignores it and has four followers kneel down so he can stand on top of them to look over the wall.
On seeing the blue-flashing-emergency-vehicle, he commands his followers to put him down and advances on the group.
"We have stayed overly-long in this place, and it is now time to depart. While I'm more than happy to sacrifice some miserable soul, there is no power to be harvested in defeating an over-large mech-ee-guh-nome.
I suggest we get back on the road toward our mission at once."
I look up at the mention of a guh-nome. "A guh-nome?! Maybe it know where the rat-things are! We could use some fodder to send in front of us goblins. "
Hearing Retzack sound the retreat, Talks takes the time to attempt to cut the propeller free of the machine monstrosity's head and stuff it into her scorpion mouth, before absconding towards the forest, where she will (if successful) transform back into a goblin, and stuff her prize into her bag-of-human-things.
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Retzack stares at the bard as if he'd just grown a second and third head. "Bloop-Blip, this is a Mech-ee-guh-nome. A thing of unliving metal that posses no juicy fluid upon which void worms may sup, and no soul which might be righteously sacrificed to C--erm, Meatsnacks. There is neither glory nor treasure to be had, simply an unliving construct that is trying to carry out it's last duty to defend that which no longer exists.
We are low on Followers and I do not relish the inconvenience of losing more so far from our main goal.
Does that make things clearer?"
"the mage speaks true. Beings of metal are of little interest to the gods."
Talks would return to the group, carrying her sack, and wearing her Gnome-Ten-Do (it's a martial art!) Power Glove in time to hear Haluk explain that the gods didn't care about metal beings. Note to self, learn how to become a metal tree! That way he wouldn't try to sacrifice her!
The fodder goblins are confused by the order to fall back from an enemy, but they're even more confused by the mech that's approaching them. Also, the mech is quite large, and as Retzack pointed out, your follower supplies are running quite low. They follow you out of the city without complaint, and the mech crashes into the building that you all left a few moments later. From within the ruined walls you see sparks of light flashing as you leave Tinkertown.
Following Retzack's imperious lead, the warband marches on through the forest. Along the path to the drow tower in the distance, you find a discarded backpack on the side of the road; empty, except for a small broach made of a cheap, rusted metal.
When you move on from it, you find yourselves almost upon the tower of the dark elves. From across the open field that lies at the tower's base, you can see a pair of armored human-sized figures bearing spears flanking the front door. They haven't noticed you yet. What do you do?
Talks dumps her goodies from her sack into the backpack! Much better! She doesn't even take the rusted metal out! That's just an added bonus! Upgrade! She leaves the old sack for one of the other goblins to snatch up. She could probably wrestle it free later, anyway.
"Um. Um. Should we attack with our gobble-vision? That's better than longshank sight, yeah? Or should we rest? I can always sleep!" She explains to Groonk, since the add-ult gobbos probably won't listen anyway.
"Lot's of ground to cover..." Groonk grunts, looking at the open field that spans between them. "Too bad that big metal thing isn't here for a distraction. We need something like that so we can get across that field without all the little squishies getting skewered along the way."
I look around, Discerning Realities if necessary. Is there anything in the open field that might provide cover, or is it a straight open shot to the tower?
With Groonk's opinion out in the open, Talks tries to think of a good burrower... preferably something that is fast -and- can leave a tunnel behind for her friends.
"Too bad the giant bug exploded. We could probably have ridden it straight through the under-elfs. I managed to steer it a bit, remember?"
Upon hearing Blibberblab's suggestion, Talks, dashes off saying she has to potty again! It doesn't occur to her that Retzack would probably take all of this as a sublime sign that the powers that be not only gave him spiders when he asked for them, but gave Blibberblab beetles when he asked for them!
While gone, she does her best to visualize the giant earthdwelling beetle as best she can, and slowly transforms into it. This time, she once more focuses on giving her insect form Strength enough to carry the other gobbos into battle! Maybe she could even use those awesome armor wings to provide her fodder-mates with cover!
The emerald green beetle returns to the group in excellent condition, as if it had never been slain, and totally as if it had never been hurt by the others! It makes a chuffing sound (the good kind, not the bad kind), and nestles down to let the goblin climb aboard. And possibly will kill him later.
Nice roll indeed! Due to your double-6 roll, you get two additional benefits - no stat drawback is one, and you get a WILD GROWTH upon transformation!
A Wild Growth is a Shapeshift-specific bonus for when a player rolls two 6s. You can enhance the shape or design of your beetle in one significant way of your choice!
The horrifying-looking beetle trundles out of the woods near you to patiently wait alongside the other goblins. It's slightly smaller and much greener than the one you faced but no less fearsome-looking - in fact, you see that it's now sporting massive digging claws on its forelegs.
I say we follow this giant bug! Assuming, that is, that it isn't here to get revenge on us for killing it's pappy or something *as Groonk tries to hide the massive horn in his hands*
Talks nuzzles Groonk in a friendly manner. But not too much! No need to send the wrong signals! And then leads the charge... digging a hole for the other goblins to cross the field with! Burrow burrow burrow.
Groonks smiles as the beetle nuzzles him, but he's thinking of the scorpion the whole time.
With burrowing underway, he charges down the tunnel in pursuit. Does the horn fit? If not, then it's time to be a distraction it would seem :/
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The giant beetle that appeared out of nowhere seems to be providing a means of transport for the brute Groonk. Or is leading him to his doom. Whichever.
Retzack stays where he is, eyeing the guards from a silent distance.
He begins the preparation of the spell he's been working on since before the village of the guh-nomes. It should be ready once the beetle emerges. Or eats a screaming Groonk. Either will be taken as a sign.
I scurry onto the beetle's horn and await the emergence of the warband at the gates of the tower.
As Talks burrows across the fields, her horn protrudes ever so slightly, reminiscent of a landshark, leaving Groonk with the ability to do the same! Plenty of space down here for sudden, disastrous occurances!
SURPRISE, FILTHY ELFSES! Talks screamed mentally, instead of her typical waaaaaaagh! as she exploded from the earth beneath the guards!
Haluk orders his acoyltes forward into the tunnel before following them. Staying at the back of the mob so some of the other fodder takes the worst of the underelves defenses.
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Retzack holds back his followers. He will not be able to direct the mindless fools once the spell is unleashed.
He speaks words from a language that was long-dead before the first elves crawled down from the trees to walk erect.
Far away, out of guards' line of awareness, small dots of what can only be called un-space begin to form and coalesce out of formlessness.
The goblins, understandably loving the idea of an underground ambush, file into the tunnel after Groonk and Tutti, with the exception of Retzack's six. When you command them to hold, Retzack, you notice that your follows nod and smile at you with sharp teeth and a forked tongue darts out between them. They hiss and giggle to each other as they cluster around you, their tongues darting out every so often as if to taste the magic in the air around them.
Haluk Godtongue's followers are fewer but share their master's zealotry more than most. Chanting praises to the dark gods, they rally the other fodder goblins forward down the tunnel.
At the end of the tunnel you see a sudden burst of light that accompanies a massive rupturing noise, as the menacing green beetle powers its way through the surface again!
The two guards standing watch at the door are knocked aside by Tutti's sudden emergence, wordlessly crumpling to the ground some ten yards away from the hole she made in the earth. They slowly rise to their feet, but are surprised! Everyone gets a free turn against them before they can act.
Wrist bow!
I level my wrist, exposing the guh-nome device, and rain darts down at one of the guards.
Volley
I scowl as the crossbow jams.
"Foolish guh-nomes, how do you fail at hurting things?"