The moment's hesitation from Sydney throws off her groove and her shot at the skreeling goes well wide of its intended target. Thankfully, when Arc hauls himself out of the acid, the skreeling's opportunistic claw attack isn't able to get past his armor.
While Arc manages to pull himself free of the acid just in time to avoid an untimely death, much of the rest of the party focus on the skreesire. Ted delivers a hail of unerring force bolts from his extra-energized top, bruising the monster. Spectre scorches a wayward tentacle with the angry red beam of his plasma rifle, thanks to Solaria's clever feinting last round. And Solaria herself continues her distraction, leaving the skreesire just as bewildered!
|||| INIT ||||
Solaria
Sydney
Spectre
Arc (64 dmg) -standard action remaining
Ted
Isu (10 dmg, grappled)
Skreesire (41 dmg, flatfooted)
Blue skreeling (22 dmg)
Bold are up!
--
-
--
Isu tosses a grenade behind the skreesire, setting off a burst of sparks that the monstrosity was not ready for. While the electricity burns the creature's hide, it seems far from giving up. It lashes out twice at Isu with its tentacles, striking both times even as its strongest tentacle keeps a solid grasp of the kasatha!
Meanwhile, the skreeling continues to pursue Arc, sensing just how wounded he is. It gets a lucky attack with its claw but scratches him only lightly.
|||| INIT ||||
Solaria
Sydney
Spectre
Arc (65 dmg) -extra std action from last round
Ted
Isu (31 dmg, grappled)
Skreesire (47 dmg, flatfooted)
Blue skreeling (22 dmg)
Bold are up!
|
"This isn't going well!" He grabs another frag grenade from his clothes and clutches his top from the air. Holding them firmly between his hands, his back arcs as the top draws his life force to fuse the objects.
Empowered Weapon (Su)
As a move action, you can expend an unused spell slot to reconfigure and enhance a weapon you’re wielding. Until the start of your next turn, your attacks with the enhanced weapon gain a bonus to attack rolls equal to the level of the spell slot you expended. In addition, your attacks with that weapon deal 1d6 additional damage per level of the expended spell slot. This damage is of the same type the weapon normally deals.
Round 3:
Sydney dodges and shoots at the baby skreeling again.
Solaria sees how badly Isu is being beaten up and shouts out encouragement to him to break free from the beast.
---
-
The skreesire continues its assault on Isu, tentacles whirling and writhing. This time however, while his armor protects him from the first smash, the second swing of a tentacle hits him with incredible momentum, slamming him against the cavern wall. While he's very briefly dazed, the muscular tentacle keeping him grappled tightens its grip.
The blue skreeling swoops after Sydney, but she's quick enough on her feet to dodge the attack.
|||| INIT ||||
Solaria
Sydney
Spectre
Arc (57 dmg, of which 22 is HP dmg)
Ted
Isu (41 dmg, grappled)
Skreesire (58 dmg)
Blue skreeling (22 dmg)
Bold are up!
|
|
Ted's top finishes the welding. Ted frowns and tightens his grip on the grenade, forcing more energy in to it before throwing it behind the skreesire.
School necromancy
Casting Time 1 standard action
Range touch
Targets one living creature or construct
Duration instantaneous and 1 round/level; see text
Saving Throw Fortitude partial and Will partial, see text; Spell Resistance yes
You concentrate key particles in your blood into tiny biological nanobots that you can inject into a foe with a touch, disrupting and damaging its natural processes. Make a melee attack against the target’s EAC; if you hit, the nanobots deal 4d8 damage and swarm through the target’s biological or mechanical systems, causing the creature to be confused, as per confusion, for 1 round per your caster level. If the target succeeds at a Fortitude save, it takes only half damage and negates the confusion effect. A confused target can attempt a Will saving throw at the beginning of its turn each round to end the confusion effect.
Casting this spell doesn’t provoke attacks of opportunity.
Spell Grenade (Sp)
You can spend 1 Resolve Point to store a spell with a range of touch in a grenade, allowing you to affect a target within the grenade’s blast radius with the spell. Casting a spell with spell grenade uses the spell’s standard casting time, and throwing the spell grenade is a standard action. You must throw the grenade before the end of your next turn, or the spell is wasted. You are considered proficient with the grenade for this attack. Choose a single target within the grenade’s blast radius; that target is affected by the spell as if you had successfully touched it. The grenade goes off as normal, with all of its usual effects within its blast radius. If you miss the targeted intersection with the grenade, you must choose a target within the grenade’s new blast radius. If there are no suitable targets within the grenade’s blast radius, the spell is wasted. Spells whose ranges are not touch don’t benefit from this magic hack.
Empowered Weapon (Su)
As a move action, you can expend an unused spell slot to reconfigure and enhance a weapon you’re wielding. Until the start of your next turn, your attacks with the enhanced weapon gain a bonus to attack rolls equal to the level of the spell slot you expended. In addition, your attacks with that weapon deal 1d6 additional damage per level of the expended spell slot. This damage is of the same type the weapon normally deals.
Round 4:
Sydney vine steps left and back, firing at the allusive skreeling.
Solaria, seeing that Isu is not out of the woods yet, provides another distraction to give her allies the opening they need to take down the skreesire.
She successfully distracts the creature!
---
-
It fails to shield itself from the follow-up from Isu. The flames from his incendiary blaze across its tentacles. Unfortunately, the plasma beam from Spectre is well off target, firing at the location the skreesire was before it dove into evading all these grenades!
Sydney and Arc combined deliver a pair of accurate attacks at the skreeling, finishing it off with style.
Despite the flames and nanomachines hurting it, the skreesire refuses to fall. It sends out a telepathic pulse of anger and starts to try to drag Isu back into the pool! The pull sends him lurching into the shallower acid at the southern edge of the pool. As his boots slap down into ankle deep acid, the acidic vapors start to burn him. The tentacle that was keeping him grappled loses its grip.
|||| INIT ||||
Solaria
Sydney
Spectre
Arc (57 dmg, of which 22 is HP dmg)
Ted
Isu (42 dmg)
Skreesire (76 dmg, flatfooted)
Bold are up!
Solaria once more tries to distract the nasty creature, "I'm gonna get you, you slimething!" she shouts as she takes aim.
Sydney dashes back to the north, this time firing a shot off at the skreesire.
While she fails to trick the beast, with Solaria's feint keeping the beast distracted she just barely lands a shot - scorching a tentacle in the process.
---
While Arc's starknife clinks against the cavern wall, getting recalled before it can fall into the acid, Ted's magic missiles slam into the skreesire's ugly maw. But it's Spectre's beam of plasma directly into that open maw that proves its undoing. The back of its neck blasts open with a gout of blood and plasma and the creature finally collapses into the acid.
For a moment, the only sound is your heavy breathing and the hissing and crackling of the acid... and then the corpse of the skreesire RUPTURES! Laser and plasma-scorched pieces scattering across the north-western side of the cavern.
Combat Over!
Sydney doesn't holster her pistol just yet. She circles around the rock and looks at the exploded remains. "So cultists are on this planet? With there things?" She waves her weapon at the gooey remains.
Solaria looks dismayed at the dead alien creature, "How come the whole universe is out to kill us." as her body shakes before she can regain control. Looking at Arc and Isu she smiles weakly, "How are you guys, Arc you look terrible, is there anything we can do to help." a tear forms in her eye, dropping slowly down inside her suit helmet. "We could do with cleaning up here, I mean I know it's a cavern in the middle of no-where, but we could make it home for a while. I mean we all need a rest after that. Let me try and remove the debris, I mean I don't want to touch it, but we must have something we can use." She continues to talk to herself, moving aimlessly about the cavern, but staying close to her friends.
|
Isu wearily recollects his weapons that ended up scattered around the gave, and slumps down next to Arc to rest and catch his breath.
Isu lays a hand on Arc to use his healing channel. , and then follows it up with a mystic cure. [dice]d8+2[/dice
"It is good for you that you taught me the ways of Sarenrae, Arcaline Soter. All of my extensive knowledge of her comes from you!"
|
Arcalinte, seeing the skreesire explode, hooks his starknife back on its clip, takes a seat on the cave floor and breathes a sigh of relief.
"I'm sorry...this was my fault. It...it got in my head like it did for that sniper, made me think its spawn was getting away and I had to chase it. And yet once the fight started I decided to try and fight it in melee rather than fall back and use my starknife. I nearly got myself killed and led you all into danger. I'm sorry."
He accepts Isu's offer of healing, more of the acid burns clearing from his skin as it washes over him, and offers Solaria a bit of a hug.
"Thank you, Isu. You've a lot to learn still about how the Dawnflower does things, but she clearly thinks you're doing something right."
When Solaria mentions hunkering down in the skreesire's cave, he nods.
"I have a mobile hotelier tent in my pack, and thankfully the acid didn't damage it. It'll only be able to hold two people, though."
Between Arc's tent, and any other tents you bring, you set up a simple camp within the cave. You rest that evening in the shadow of the exploded skreesire, within a cave whose acrid atmosphere brings to mind images of the sulfurous hellish planes. Nevertheless, you're eventually able to calm yourselves down enough to get some rest.
Once your wounds and rumbling stomachs have been dealt with, you're able to return your attention to the acid cave and its strange contents. You note once more the dead humanoid body, wrapped in red and black robes, propped up against the ledge next to the acid pool. You also clear the ash away in the center of the room to reveal the trap door that Sydney spotted the previous day. This heavy steel aperture doesn't appear to be locked and it sports a simple recessed handle.
Sydney would prefer to sleep on the ship, but doesn't want to separate from the rest of the party. She'll sleep on top of the trap door when the party rests.
Sydney is willing to go first or let someone more tanky try the door. She aims her pistol at the metal as someone attempts to pry it open.
As Solaria cleans up the area, she strips the body of all it's clothing and lays them out to be searched, whilst she gets the body ready for a ceremonial disposal. As she does she scans the body for any foreign objects, tech and biotech parts, then clean the surface of the cadaver. "I mean, I don't fancy this thing decomposing any more than it has too, once ready we can let it slide to it's god in the comfort of the acid lake. See nice and tidy, no mess."
Once the place is cleaned up and they have no need to stay in the area Solaria says, "It would be so good to get back to the comfort of the ship, cleanse ourselves of the grim of this place. Let's give this poor soul a start to judgement, can someone slide the body into the lake."
|
|
"Please don't drink the acid anymore, Arc" Ted smiles as he drags the dead red and black wrapped humanoid off the ledge and gives him a once over.
Arloric rolls his eyes at Ted's verbal jab.
"I didn't DRINK it, Ted, I SWAM in it."
When Solaria starts cleaning up the body for disposal, he frowns but says nothing. When Solaria asks for someone to place it in the acid, he obliges, picking it up and taking it over to the shore he'd swam out of just an Absalom-standard-day ago and slides the cadaver into the acid.
You start inspecting the corpse and immediately notice a few things, some very alarming.
First, while the man is very definitely dead, he hasn't been dead for anywhere near as long as all the other bodies you've encountered here on the surface. Second, you quickly spot the red and black holy symbol on a silver chain around his neck - the same as the one you found earlier among the cold iron shards. Third, the robes are badly torn around the chest area. As you push aside the folds, the reason why becomes dreadfully obvious.
This man's chest has been torn open and nestled inside his ribcage are over a dozen shiny black eggs, each larger than Isu's balled fist!
You reckon that this person was killed only three or four days ago.
----
Once your initial shock of seeing the corpse's state has worn off, Ted also notices that its cloak had a half dozen hidden pockets, each one filled with a medallion of a different precious metal and sporting scenes of stars being swallowed by black holes. Any weapons the man might have had are missing, though he also has a spent standard battery in one of the hidden pockets.
----
Once you've dealt with the body, you turn your attention to the trap door in the center of the room. Sydney eases the door open to reveal a steel-lined shaft descending down around 30ft. A slightly rusty ladder provides an easy way down into the space, and softly glowing red emergency lights provide illumination.
"Please don't drink the acid anymore, Arc" Ted smiles as he drags the dead red and black wrapped humanoid off the ledge and gives him a once over.
"I didn't DRINK it, Ted, I SWAM in it."
Sydney smirks and gives a short nod. &@%#, Ted has wit.
Sydney adds her two credits to the situation. "The cultists must have used the Skreesire as a guard dog. It looks like they killed their own to keep it sated." She curls her lip in disgust at the eggs and looks for a way to destroy them. Maybe a large rock or the heel of someone's boot...
cloak had a half dozen hidden pockets, each one filled with a medallion of a different precious metal and sporting scenes of stars being swallowed by black holes.
The ace pilot operative squints at the jewelry but doesn't comment.
Sydney holsters her weapon for the descent. "Arc, Isu, one of you wanna go first? They got necrotic weapons." Sydney follows second or third down the hole. She waits at the landing for everyone to climb down before proceeding, quietly observing each person climb down the rung. She takes a moment to look around, wondering why the emergency lights might be on.
|
|
"If you are referring to his near-death acid mishap, I will have to pass," Spectre says. "Further, I do not have any of the pores you organics have to deal with."
Spectre prepares to descend the ladder.
"Speaking of which, one of your pores appears to be extremely irritated. The one three millimeters to the left of the center of your forehead."
"Sydney, those eggs sure make a mess, I've only just cleaned up, now you're making an omelette on the floor. Solaria says complaining, "Let me tidy it up, then we'll go."
Once the cleaning is complete, Solaria checks her batteries and her torch lights. "Ready when you are, lights on. Let me know when it's my turn to go down. Should we drop a flare down first "
Isu heads down first, followed by Arc and the rest of the party. Mid way down, you hear a strange clunk from the walls of the shaft, but nothing obvious happens after the sound. The whole group emerges from the bottom of the shaft into a wide corridor that starts from the bottom of the ladder and heads westward.
The corridor is a dramatic change after the unworked rocky surface of the asteroid. The walls, ceiling and floor are clad in steel panels, and dim light is provided by the strips of red emergency lights lining the walls and ceiling. Intermittent clanking and hissing sounds emit from the corridor ahead, though their sources are not obvious.
You head along the corridor... clanking sounds echoing along with the sounds of your footsteps. As you move, you spot some irregular shapes lying on the floor ahead. You approach and realize that they're more dead cultists - their bodies blackened and hacked apart. They've been stripped of any weapons or armor.
You step past them and emerge into a wide room, unadorned except for utilitarian red-lit panels set into the walls... and the swaths of blood staining the floor. The western end of the room has a 10ft wide and high steel blast door that is sealed down tight. Next to the door is a very simple keypad - the kind you would use to lock or unlock a door.
|
|
"I'm starting to hate it when I'm right," Arcalinte says quietly, to no one in particular. "Someone got to the cultists before we did, and the cultists were strong enough to fend off our pirate friends. So if someone came through here with firepower the pirates didn't have, it means there's another player with pieces on the board."
He looks and listens for signs of movement.
"Could be Arc, or his is trapped and the bodies have been removed once the trap has been sprung. Did you not hear the sound as we came down. we must tread carefully." Solaria says in a serious tone. As she looks for anything in the red light that might provide some sort of cover.
|
|
Ted gets closer to the panel and sends his top over to push the buttons.
School transmutation
Casting Time 1 standard action
Range close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Targets one unattended object of no more than 10 lbs. or 1 bulk
Duration concentration
Saving Throw none; Spell Resistance no
You point your finger at the target object, gaining the ability to lift it and move it at will from a distance. As a move action, you can propel the object as far as 15 feet in any direction, though the spell ends if the distance between you and the object ever exceeds the spell’s range. You can’t perform complex operations, such as firing a gun or using a computer, but you can shut a mechanical door or lid and work simple buttons to open or close automated doors or trigger an alarm.
You step past them and emerge into a wide room, unadorned except for utilitarian red-lit panels set into the walls... and the swaths of blood staining the floor. The western end of the room has a 10ft wide and high steel blast door that is sealed down tight. Next to the door is a very simple keypad - the kind you would use to lock or unlock a door.
Ted gets closer to the panel and sends his top over to push the buttons.
The ace pilot operative watches in interest as the technomancer performs some sort of magic on the panel. If/when he begins to tinker, she'll offer her support.
[Computers (Aid Another)]1d20 +13[/dice]