Isu's swing crushes the yellow skeleton's ribcage with a burst of disruptive energy, letting Ted redirect his missiles to blue instead. The second skeletal soldier weathers the pummeling and raises his claw, ready to strike at the retreating droid.
|||| INIT ||||
Sydney (24 dmg)
Solaria
Arc (32 dmg)
Spectre (10 dmg | 10 temp HP)
Isu (1 dmg)
Ted
Skele-pal Red
Skele-pal Blue (13 dmg)
Bold are up.
|
Arc hears the skeletal soldier rattling out "Kill the weaker ones first, these two are too well warded! The cult's pet will deal with the others."
"Isu, defend the others, they're going to try targeting them instead of us! And they're saying the cultists have a pet!" Arcalinte translates before pressing the attack!
Sydney dodges to the side before firing away at the skeletal figure.
Unfortunately her view of the creature is impaired by the swinging illumination of the flash lights, and her shot grazes a skeletal torso rather than delivering a killing blow.
---
Arc's burning weapon embeds deep into the chest of the skeletal soldier. For as much as these creatures are capable of enduring physical punishment, the plasma cuts through them like a knife through butter. The blue skeletal soldier staggers back, severely injured.
However, the injury seems to bolster its determination. It lunges with its icy claw twice more at Spectre and the first strike pierces right into the droid's torso. Thankfully the second jab is nowhere near as vicious and Spectre's armor deflects it.
Those with darkvision notice a lizard-like creature lumbering its way on four stumpy legs from the south end of the chamber. The creature's red, scaly hide reminds you of some of the dinosaurs you faced on Castrovel, but what really draws your attention are its eyes. Its eyes smoke with a swirling black vapor and as you gaze into them, you're struck with a chill, as though within them you can see the maddening mysteries of deep space.
Looking Obliquely: An opponent that avoids looking directly at the creature’s face (either by following the creature’s shadow or by tracking it in a reflective surface) or that looks at the creature through a camera or heads-up display gains a +4 circumstance bonus to the saving throw. However, the creature with the gaze ability gains concealment against that opponent.
Blocking Its Vision: By completely blocking or covering its own visual sensors, an opponent doesn’t need to attempt a save against the gaze. However, the creature with the gaze ability gains total concealment against that opponent.
---
Arc and Spectre are the only ones within range this round.
|||| INIT ||||
Sydney (24 dmg)
Solaria
Arc (32 dmg) - Within Gaze
Spectre (23 dmg) - Within Gaze
Isu (1 dmg)
Ted
Skele-pal Red
Skele-pal Blue (31 dmg)
Lizard Monster
Bold are up.
Sydney side dashes until she has a clear shot of blue, then fires. The expression on her face seems to say she's done with these undead baddies.
|
|
Arcalinte sees the creature and its smoky, swirling eyes and for a brief moment is transfixed, thinking that...just for a bit...he can feel a deeper connection to the cosmos and the Cycle than he's ever felt, but it passes quickly. This thing was a beast, nothing more and nothing less.
"That must be the pet they were referring to!" he comments, before turning his attention back to the skeleton who had just wounded Spectre.
"BURN!"
---
Arc is left advancing to reach the strange lizard-like creature with the horrible gaze. His flaming curve blade seems to blaze a path through the air right towards the creature's neck, but it turns a bony shoulder into the blow. The blade glances along its thick hide, doing little more than scratching it.
The lizard-like creature attacks with single-minded determination, biting viciously at Arc. It crunches his leg with its powerful maw.
|||| INIT ||||
Sydney (24 dmg) - Within Gaze
Arc (45 dmg) - Within Gaze
Spectre (23 dmg) - Within Gaze
Isu (1 dmg) - Within Gaze
Ted x2
Skele-pal Red
Lizard Monster
Bold are up.
Sydney feels the tendrils of insanity tug at her mind, but manages to shake off the feeling. She presses on with her attack, dashing further into the room for an optimally clear shot and firing.
|
"If that's a pet, let's avoid its master."
Ted walks in to the dark where the flash of blasters and flaming weapons partially highlights the new monster. He grabs his top and pushes his life force in to it, creating nanobots that swirl over the surface of the top.
He unpins a frag grenade and merges his top in to the explosive before hurling it in to the darkness near the lizard.
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.
Mystic Strike (Combat)
Your magical power flows into your weapons.
Prerequisites: Ability to cast Spells.
Benefit: Your melee and ranged attacks count as magic for the purposes of bypassing damage reduction and other situations, such as attacking incorporeal creatures.
-
-
Isu's voluntary blindness leaves him swinging at air, but it protects him from the creature's gaze. And Spectre's shot fires well off target as he recalibrates.
Out of nowhere, Ted's empowered grenade sails through the air, lands behind the beast, and explodes! While it instinctually shields itself from some of the shards, its not able to protect itself from the invasion of nanobots, which run rampant through its body!
The lizard whips its head from side to side in confusion before settling enough to bite wildly at the largest target - Isu! Its jaws clamp down hard on his leg.
|||| INIT ||||
Sydney (24 dmg) - Within Gaze
Arc (45 dmg) x2 - Within Gaze
Spectre (23 dmg) - Within Gaze
Isu (9 dmg) - Within Gaze
Ted - Within Gaze
Skele-pal Red
Lizard Monster (23 dmg, confused)
Bold are up.
|
With his plan worthless, Isu takes one hand off one eye and tries to study the monsters feet. Thankfully, he is bit at the same time which helps him find the target.
Isu is surely blessed by Sarenrae as his partially obstructed view is good enough to help him land a huge blow on the monster. (34 total damage) It falls prone.
phew
|
|
Spectre once again spews nonsense as his gaze connects with the mysterious creature. This time, he takes it out on the target of his tormenting: Ted.
He fires at the technomancer, but at the last second a part of his programming that recognizes Ted as a nominal ally kicks in, and Spectre jerks the rifle away just as he fires.
|
|
Arcalinte tries to follow Isu's example and shield his eyes from the monster!
It doesn't help, and the creature's power finally asserts itself on his mind!
He starts giggling madly and grabs his curve blade, burning his hand.
"SHINE! WATCH IT SHINE IN THE DAWNFLOWER'S HOLY FIRE AS THE CYCLE BURNS ON! CYCLECYCLECYCLE!!!"
Syd feints turning north, then double backs as the lizard's head tracks northward. She fires a laser bolt that scorches the lizard monster's soft underbelly!
----
In the midst of this, Isu keenly aims at the lizard-like creature's head with his hammer and lands a blow that spins the creature a full 360 degrees! It falls to the ground, head partially caved in. It sits there stunned for a moment. But despite its grievous injuries it picks itself back up! The blow seems to have snapped it out of its confusion.
It lunges at Isu with a bleeding mouth, jaws biting down hard through his armor once more. As he shakes off the beast, Isu sees glowing bolts of force streaking towards him from the south. They strike in quick succession, each one aimed at one of his earlier wounds.
|||| INIT ||||
Sydney (24 dmg) - Within Gaze
Arc (53 dmg) - Within Gaze
Spectre (23 dmg) - Within Gaze
Isu (30 dmg) - Within Gaze
Ted (3 dmg) - Within Gaze
Skele-pal Red
Lizard Monster (77 dmg, flat-footed)
Bold are up.
|
|
Ted eye socket really stings. His top looks indignant and gives him a "you deserved that" loop in the air. Ted angrily grabs it out from the air and throws it at the body (not face) of the beast.
"Spec, shut down! You're too weak for this!"
School evocation (force)
Casting Time 1 standard action; see text
Range medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level)
Targets up to three creatures, no two of which can be more than 15 ft. apart; see text
Duration instantaneous
Saving Throw none; Spell Resistance yes
You fire two missiles of magical energy that strike targets unerringly (the creatures must still be valid targets) and deal 1d4+1 force damage each. You can’t target specific parts of a creature, and objects are not damaged by the spell.
You can target a single creature or several creatures, but each missile can strike only one creature. You must designate targets before you attempt to overcome spell resistance or roll damage.
You can cast this spell as a full action. If you do, you fire three missiles instead of two.
Three missiles pummel the lizard-like creature, sending it stumbling right into a powerful swing from Isu. His hammer crushes its torso and sends it sprawling in a bloody heap.
|||| INIT ||||
Sydney (24 dmg)
Arc (53 dmg)
Spectre (23 dmg)
Isu (30 dmg)
Ted (3 dmg)
Skele-pal Red
Bold are up.
|
|
"CYCLECYCLECYCLEEEEEOUCH!!!" Arcalinte screams as he snaps out of his madness and realizes he's grabbing a plasma-sheathed sword!
Then he looks and sees the final undead at the door, and glares at them. He grips his blade correctly and begins running at them, plasma from the sword seeming to extend around his entire body, seeming to transform into a comet streaking towards the enemy!
Syd spins to the side to fire at the remaining skeleton from the hip!
The shot catches the skeletal caster in the leg, scorching their armor and throwing them off balance.
----
This room appears to have once been some sort of kitchen. Now, its become more of a charnel house. Half-eaten bodies of cultists lie piled around the sides of the room along with a single dead lizard-creature of the same kind you just slew. The tables and floor are soaked in blood, and a large meat cleaver lies on the ground in the center of the room next to the badly damaged body of a skeletal soldier. Another curtain blocks the view of the room to the east.
The red skeleton, already badly injured, mutters "I see how you got past the skreesire we left up above..." He takes a guarded step away from Arc and draws a glyph in the air... before vanishing from sight.
|||| INIT ||||
Sydney (24 dmg)
Arc (53 dmg)
Spectre (23 dmg)
Isu (30 dmg)
Ted (3 dmg)
Skele-pal Red (28 dmg, flatfooted, invisible)
Bold are up.
The blast of fire and light briefly blinds everyone in the dimly lit room. Isu pulls through slightly scorched. But from the sound of the thump of some heavy invisible mass hitting the steel floor, the skeletal spellcaster wasn't so lucky. As the flames dissipate, no further sounds come from the area where you think the spellcaster lies.
Combat Over!
Final status
Sydney (24 dmg)
Arc (53 dmg)
Spectre (23 dmg)
Isu (35 dmg)
Ted (3 dmg)
|
|
Arcalinte stands for a moment in a hunched stance, breathing in ragged gasps as the fight comes to an end, anger still written clearly on his face. Then he begins rummaging around in his pack.
"Still have one left. Gonna need it."
He locates his serum and downs it.
Then he drops his curve blade and falls to his knees, his armor receding back into mote form unbidden.
|
|
"Spec, remember to not make Arc mad," Ted stares wide eyed at the immolated skeleton as his top scans the room for magic.
Detect Magic
School divination
Casting Time 1 standard action
Range 60 ft.
Area cone-shaped emanation
Duration concentration, up to 1 minute/level
Saving Throw none; Spell Resistance no
You detect all magic spells, effects, items, and objects (including those on or affecting creatures you can see), as well as hybrid items, in the area. You can’t detect magical traps in this way, as they are created with additional magic that wards them from this common spell. Each round you concentrate on the same area, you can determine if one magic source you detect is from a spell, magic item, or other effect, and the caster level (or item level) of the effect. You can’t determine if there are magic sources in areas you can’t see, or if there was a magic source in an area at one time but that has since expired.
With the skeletal threat eliminated, you draw together in the larger room and sit to rest while Isu heals the group. As you rest, you note a skeletal body reappear in the grisly southern room, its invisibility expired. 10 minutes later and you're all feeling a lot better!
This large western room is still dark, but once you're done resting you're able to explore it with your flashlights. Looming over the west side of this sterile room are floor-to-ceiling computer consoles that swallow the entire wall with dizzying displays of darkened screens, inset buttons, levers, and switches. The bodies of both the lizard-creature you slew and the skeletal soldiers you destroyed lie scattered across the floor.
Now that you have the time, you're able to inspect the three undead. Each one wears armor marked with a clear insignia of a carved skull with an elongated cranium. Furthermore you find a small datapad on the spellcaster that seems to still be functional despite the mini-supernova that Arc produced.
Two skeletal-class tomb claws.
Three rasp-class frailty pistols.
One tactical dueling sword.
Ted's attempt to detect magic comes up empty - there doesn't appear to be anything magical in the room any longer.
|
|
Isu reaches into himself to find the power that Sarenrae has gifted him, but then he shakes his head. "This one is sorry, Arcalinte Soter. This one thought that he had the power, but this one is too weak. Weak! This one should have done a better job protecting you all. Confound it! Add it to this one's list of failures."
In a huff, Isu starts to flip switches and levers on the computer consoles to see if he can get anything to spring to life.
Sydney picks up one of the rasp-class frailty pistols and examines it. She sits to rest and fingers the details of the necrotic gun.
"This one should have done a better job protecting you all. Confound it! Add it to this one's list of failures."
The operative looks up from her seated position. That Kasatha feels responsible for us? She looks from the soldier to the solarian and tries to assess how she feels. Sydney ends up feeling awkward so she stands and walks over to examine the small datapad they just looted.
"Ahem. So. The datapad on that spellcaster seems to be functional."
|
|
Isu reaches into himself to find the power that Sarenrae has gifted him, but then he shakes his head. "This one is sorry, Arcalinte Soter. This one thought that he had the power, but this one is too weak. Weak! This one should have done a better job protecting you all. Confound it! Add it to this one's list of failures."
In a huff, Isu starts to flip switches and levers on the computer consoles to see if he can get anything to spring to life.
Having recovered, Arcalinte takes a closer look at the insignia on each suit to see if he recognizes it.
Then he turns to Isu.
"You are not weak, Isu. Your tenacity and ability to keep fighting has kept several of our fights from turning into massacres. And as far as healing goes, that will come with practice and time. Channeling magical power is like using a muscle: you practice and build your strength, much like how you developed your combat skills. You don't have to apologize for doing your best. But maybe it's that list that's holding you back? Sarenrae is more than fire and light. She is forgiveness and healing too. And while you're trying hard on the healing part, it sounds like forgiveness is something you're struggling with...forgiving yourself. That's what we mean when we say 'The Dawn Brings New Light.' Mistakes are inevitable, even Sarenrae herself has made a few, but we learn from them and what we learn makes us stronger, better people, ready to face yet another day."
He offers Isu a hug.
Arc notes that the insignia are a clear match for the Corpse Fleet symbol. From the slightly different trim on the one belonging to the caster, it seems like that might have been some kind of sergeant or minor officer.
Sydney finds the Corpse Fleet spellcaster's datapad is secured, but surprisingly easy to hack into. Or at least, that's how it looks at first blush. She pushes past the login and ID verification only to find a full system wipe already in progress! She halts the wipe but finds most of the data stored is already zero-filled. She manages to recover a few scraps that suggest that this spellcaster was dispatched to this Devourer Cult base to recover some information as part of a large force. She also recovers the following intact message from the active memory (suggesting that it must have been accessed recently):
<Once you have extracted any data your superiors missed from the mainframe, erase all remaining records. You are to report in person to drop point EOX-Or-S-5236. Any valuable data should be delivered on physical media. Your contact this time is Xerantha. Do not anger her. I have no desire to reconstitute your body a second time.>
<V>
As you try to work with the large mainframe computer, it quickly becomes clear that someone has cut power to the room and the computer with it. You inspect the surroundings with your flashlights and find a service panel pulled off the western wall. The panel reveals a tangled mess of wiring, with most of the wires hastily cut.
|
|
Isu returns a one armed bro hug to Arc and shakes his head in sadness at Spectre's dented chassis. "This one was a bodyguard to a diplomatic mission from the Idari to Absalom Station. We were ambushed by a pro-human gang and everyone died...everyone but me. This one was excommunicated from the Kasathan people for dereliction of duty. This one surely deserved it; this one had been drinking the night before and had a bad headache, and missed some of the warning signs that danger was afoot. That was before we went to the Drift Rock. Now all of you have become my new mission. When you suffer, this one suffers. This one will continue to pledge to protect you all, and if one should die, may it be this one."
|
|
Spectre nods at Isu.
"In the event one should die, I also agree it should be you instead of me," the droid says without an inkling of irony.
Spectre watches Ted fixing the wires. "It is a shame you have no desire to earn a fortune. I would think being destitute would be motivation to improve your situation."
|
|
Arcalinte rolls his eyes at Spectre's insensitivity.
"Ignore him. You deserve to have someone looking out for you too, Isu. We are your light and your strength, as you are our light and our strength. We rise together."
He listens to Isu's story patiently, offering a calm smile at the end.
"And you have learned from that mistake. The past can't be changed, but you're a different person now than you were when you were exiled, and you'll be a different person tomorrow than you were today. Each day is another step toward perfection. You are not turning back into the dark."
Ted easily reconnects blue to blue and red to fuchsia in the access panel without any unsafe discharges of electricity. As he slaps the panel closed, the emergency power returns to the room. Furthermore, the large mainframe computer that makes up the western wall regains power as well.
You boot it up to find a splash screen in garish red and black, featuring a prominent black-hole-swirl in the style of the cult's holy symbol. After a surprisingly long boot process, the terminal spits out a login screen. For a moment it looks like you're going to have to hack in once more. But surprisingly, the moment you press any key, the login is bypassed and you're given access to the system.
The hacking savvy members of the party recognize the tell tale signs of someone else's tampering - that someone hacked the system and put in long-term bypasses to avoid having to repeat the process each time they wanted to get in.
Inside the system you find signs that much of the data that once was here has been carefully wiped. All that remains is the control module for the base's system-wide commset, as well as three data archives. One of those archives (labeled "Activities") has already been hacked into and its protections bypassed. The other two (labeled "Intelligence" and "Sacred Texts") are still secured.
Reading from context, it seems the cultists focused on this one prophecy in particular due to a vision shared by a few of its members. During a ritualistic group torture session, the members that had lost consciousness woke to all claim they had seen the "prophet Nyara" in their dreams speaking about a "Ring of Twelve Lights Bringing Death". This led them to focus exclusively on one of her prophecies.
It seems the cult eventually learned that this Ring was a key to some kind of powerful weapon - though this particular data archive doesn't include details as to how.
------
In addition to these messages, you find a copy of a set of galactic coordinates. For a moment it looks like they might be a full set that corresponds to "Where the ring awaits", but you're disappointed to find merely a copy of what you already pulled from Tahomen's computer. It seems that the full coordinates were part of the data archives that had already been wiped by the previous hacker...
------
Her killings and tortures became ritualistic rather than simply ambition-driven, and in exchange she began to extract strange secrets about the universe's past... and future. Or at least, that is the claim.
The data even includes a computer-generated hologram of Nyara recounting some of her most enigmatic prognostications, as recorded in her most infamous book, The Entropy of Existence and Glorious Rise of the Void, which the cultists of the Star-Eater’s Spine treat as gospel. One of these predictions is provided as a tri-d holo, in which the hologram of Nyara recites, “In the maw of the Ring of Lights lies the Key. Forsooth, shall all be undone. When the knee meets the gorge, so far. The widening gyre implodes—magnificently.”