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"If we don't act now, it IS going to get messy," Arcalinte replies to Ted. "They're talking about tearing off her legs."
When Spectre cautions not to kill them, he nods.
"I said act, not fight. I'll try to go easy on them."
On that note, he moves forward and clears his throat to make his presence known.
Sydney eases the door open and spots three elebrian ghouls with their characteristic elongated craniums, all crowded around a skeletal figure that lies on the floor. The skeleton's arms have been broken she can't quite raise herself up off the ground on the stubs that remain. Despite that, her blue-glowing eye sockets stare right up at the three ghouls.
Each of the three ghouls is armored up and carries a bulky maul with a long haft - the perfect weapon to crush skeletal limbs. None of them notice Sydney as she nigh-invisibly slips into the room, but one of the three does look over when the entry door creaks. He's left with little time to investigate, as Arc steps into sight and draws all of their attention.
The three ghouls turn in unison to face the solarian. They're caught off-guard for a moment by his statement, but the central ghoul follows up with:
Sydney takes in the sights of the prone undead with broken limbs surrounded by the three ghoul goons. She decides to take action.
Surprise Round:
From the corner, Sydney fires at the nearest ghoul.
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Arcalinte rolls his eyes at the ghouls' laughter as he pulls his mote onto his head and his solar armor forms.
He's about to continue when Sydney opens fire.
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--
The red ghoul draws a grenade and tosses to at Arc's feet, where it explodes with a hail of shrapnel.
All except Arc manage to protect themselves from the explosion as jagged bits of metal pelt the members of your group.
The other two ghouls advance upon the now visible and unpleasantly exposed operative, both delivering powerful swings of their hammers. Two weighty blows catch Syd, one on each side.
|||| INIT ||||
Isu
Spectre (3 dmg)
Ted
Sydney (31 dmg)
Arc (1 dmg)
Ghoul Soldier Red
Ghoul Soldier Blue (12 dmg)
Ghoul Soldier Green
Isu and Arc find the ghouls easy targets, both landing weighty strikes with their weapons on their respective targets. But neither the red nor blue ghoul fall, and look to still be able to take quite a bit of punishment.
|||| INIT ||||
Isu (11 dmg)
Spectre (3 dmg)
Ted
Sydney (31 dmg)
Arc (1 dmg)
Ghoul Soldier Red (26 dmg)
Ghoul Soldier Blue (26 dmg)
Ghoul Soldier Green
Round 1:
Sydney focuses her attention on the green enemy in front of her. She tries to dodge and fake a crotch kick before shooting at him in melee range.
Ted steps up to the north side of the doorway and catches a good look at the blue and green ghouls. He sends a pair of magic missiles into the green ghoul.
Meanwhile Spectre steps up to stand behind Arc and (most likely) asks the group to merely disable rather than destroy these undead thugs who might make for good business partners. Nevertheless, he fires a quick icy beam at the blue ghoul.
Unfortunately, with the cover Arc's granting, he doesn't manage to hit.
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The red ghoul strikes back at Isu, swinging twice with his hammer. Isu's armor deflects the first swing, but the second is a far more solid blow.
The blue and green ghouls toss their hammers aside, opening their mouths to reveal sharp fangs. They lunge and Sydney and Arc, biting and clawing at their prey. These natural attacks prove surprisingly dangerous. Jaws bite down through Arc's light arm armor and a claw slashes a light gash on his leg.
The ghoul attacking Syd has much less luck as she ducks and dodges away from its teeth and claws.
|||| INIT ||||
Isu (17 dmg)
Spectre (3 dmg)
Ted
Sydney (31 dmg)
Arc (17 dmg, ghoul fever-latent)
Ghoul Soldier Red (26 dmg)
Ghoul Soldier Blue (27 dmg)
Ghoul Soldier Green (29 dmg)
Bold are up
Ted sends a trio of magic missiles into green, battering its body and leaving blackened necrotic welts where the force bolts landed. Isu has much less luck with his chain gun. Bullets spray across the walls, furniture, skull-shaped knick-knacks and more. The badly injured skeletal undead ducks her head to protect herself. Unfortunately, the spray of bullets is more flashy than effective and the ghoul's armor protects them from any injury.
Arc swings in with his curve blade, the first swing slicing through a set of ghoulish legs and sending their owner sprawling to the ground with a howl of anger.
The remaining two ghouls shout obscenities in Eoxian, followed by
|||| INIT ||||
Isu (17 dmg)
Spectre (3 dmg)
Ted
Sydney (31 dmg)
Arc (17 dmg, ghoul fever-latent)
Ghoul Soldier Red (28 dmg)
Ghoul Soldier Green (29 dmg)
Bold are up
Bottled into the corner by the ghoul, Sydney acrobatically kicks a cushion off the couch towards the assailant. While it's busy fending it off, she lowers her pistol and fires once more.
If DC passes, Sydney deals 3d8 additional damage (level 5) and the target is flat-footed.
Her shot catches the ghoul right in the head, melting necrotic flesh in an instant.
----
The red ghoul backs off a step, alarmed at how quickly the tide has turned. It hisses in Eoxian.
|||| INIT ||||
Isu (17 dmg)
Spectre (3 dmg)
Ted
Sydney (31 dmg)
Arc (17 dmg, ghoul fever-latent)
Ghoul Soldier Red (28 dmg)
Bold are up
The remaining ghoul shows no signs of understanding you, beyond your threatening stance.
The ghoul doesn't attack, instead spitting out an Eoxian curse at its own misfortune.
With the ghoul cornered as it is, it obviously looks around for a way out.
|||| INIT ||||
Isu (17 dmg)
Spectre (3 dmg)
Ted
Sydney (31 dmg)
Arc (17 dmg, ghoul fever-latent)
Ghoul Soldier Red (28 dmg)
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"He's mostly saying racist khefak-s#it about how Ms. Rapinder here betrayed Eox and how she likes breathers like us, Corpse Fleet rhetoric like her former flatmate was spewing, except Harvine at least had the courage to go out and join the bloody terrorists whereas this cowardly lot decided they were just going to assault a defenseless woman for not matching their level of bigotry. In other words, useless to you," he says to Spectre. "Speaking of which, Isu, could you please check on Ms. Rapinder and see if there's anything we can do to help her? These scum pulled off her arms!"
Gretal Rapinder lies against the cage in the back of her room in a daze. The small skeletal canine creature in the cage nudges her with its skull, bringing her back to awareness. She turns her skull to look around at the mayhem and is silent for a few moments before saying "Well I never. You lot killed them. Good on you." She shimmies along the ground for a moment, clearly not in any pain. "Grab my arms, if you would, dearies."
----
The ghoul soldier tenses up in Arc's grip, but doesn't struggle... at least not yet. With the aid of one of his allies, Arc ties the last ghoul up tightly. It stares straight ahead, emotionless.
Meanwhile Gretal shimmies into an upright position and eyes her mostly-shattered bony arms longingly.
When Arc brings the arms over, Gretal indicates towards her shoulder sockets using her feet. Arc places the arms in the correct positions and feels them suddenly cling to the sockets as if by some magical force. Gretal rattles her skull in what appears to be a form of applause. "Thank you for that spot of help. I didn't expect to spend my afternoon almost getting destroyed by ex-Navy sorts, nor did I expect to get saved by the living." She swivels her reconnected arms in their socks, eyeing the shattered bony remains. Her voice is tinged with regret when she adds "These arms'll be good only for pointing. I suppose I'll have to get them repaired."
She gingerly gets up from the floor. "So what brought you folk to my flat in the first place? Surely not just aching for a fight?" She kicks a dead ghoul over to the side of the room.
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"Ex-Navy sorts?" Arcalinte asks, looking askance at the remaining ghoul. "Then they must've REALLY been cowards then. To serve same as you did and carry that hatred, yet NOT take the obvious next step and go terrorist? And then take it out on a former comrade? Speaking of which..."
He lifts his hand and displays the glowing emblem of the Starfinder Society.
"...We're Starfinders, and we're following up on a report you made to the Ministry of Vigilance regarding your former flatmate," he explains.
"Oh, the Ministry of Vigilance finally sent someone?" Gretal rattles with regret "Poor Harvinne. I feel like I was too late to help her. I knew she didn't like the way that Eox was going, but I never would have guessed she would have turned to the Corpse Fleet for answers!"
"There wasn't really any warning. Just one day she went from being a grumpy old ghoul to leaving that mad audio message and disappearing." She shrugs, a weird looking gesture for a bony skeleton. "I suppose the only thing out of the ordinary was that she had some visitors stop by a few times in the last few weeks. All to her half of the flat. They came all dressed up fine in Navy garb, so I believed her when she said they were old comrades. I never got to see any faces though... though I suppose one of them was a real hulking figure - not a ghoul or anything like that."
"You're welcome to take a look at her half of the flat if it'll help your investigation."
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"It wasn't your fault, Ms. Rapinder. It's hard to know what to say when someone is in the process of radicalizing...they start retreating from their friends, the people manipulating them trying to separate them from a support network."
He gives a small "Hmmm" at the word "hulking" in her description.
"That might be that marrowblight we saw evidence of at the Fleshworks."
He joins the others in looking around.
Ted and Isu don't end up finding anything interesting in the messy apartment that once belonged to Harvinne. It almost seems like Harvinne had a very ordinary unlife here, other than the audio log she left behind. However, Spectre and Arc have much better luck, recovering a digital picture frame which was stuffed underneath the sleeping casket.
You turn the picture frame on and cycle through the images. Most are of Harvinne and Gretal, or Harvinne and what must be her old military friends. But one picture stands out. It appears to be Harvinne kneeling next to a smiling undead elebrian in trim armor. A holographic tag of some kind seems to affixed to the undead elebrian's forehead.
Around Harvinne stand a group of other undead, including a hulking undead figure covered in bony spurs with massive claw appendages growing out of her back. Those of you who previously recognized the bony fragments at the Fleshworks realize immediately that this creature is a marrowblight!
The image file is tagged as taken two weeks ago, and includes a note: >My spirit quickens at having taken this first step under as celebrated a figure as Commander Vesh.<
Jiang-shis (often called “hopping vampires”) are grotesque undead creatures that drink the breath of the living to feed on their life energy, or “chi.” A creature can become a jiang-shi when its spirit does not depart when the creature dies, instead remaining within the rotting corpse. Eventually, the decomposing body reanimates and the newly risen jiang-shi goes in search of living creatures to feed upon.
All jiang-shis display a prayer scroll in front of their faces. In ancient, pre-Gap days, these prayer scrolls were handwritten on parchment and affixed to the corpse’s brow with stitches or staples in order to protect the deceased from the ravages of restless spirits. In modern times, holographic prayer scrolls projected in front of a jiang-shi’s forehead have typically replaced the parchment scrolls and protect the jiang-shi’s body from both physical and magical harm.
Sydney sits from her shooting pose on the couch. She doesn't do well with negotiations or diplomacy so she keeps her mouth shut. She does, however, watch as Spectre analyzes the contents of the apartment.
Not knowing much Mysticism, Sydney just gives an acknowledging hrm to Arc's realization.
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The image file is tagged as taken two weeks ago, and includes a note: >My spirit quickens at having taken this first step under as celebrated a figure as Commander Vesh.<
"Ms. Rapinder, do you recognize any of these figures?" Arcalinte asks, showing her the picture before letting Spectre analyze it. "Who is this Commander Vesh?"
Gretal looks at the picture, eventually jabbing a fractured bony finger at the large figure. "Could have been that one that came visiting. But I don't know any of them. And Commander Vesh? The name's new to me, and I know a lot of Navy or ex-Navy corpsefolk and bone troopers."
While Gretal isn't at all sure, Spectre's examination of the picture's metadata uncovers that the picture was taken approximately 6 miles outside of Orphys, somewhere out in the blasted wastes of Eox. While the freely available map on the infosphere shows nothing to be in the given location, you can see a small shack in the corner of the digital picture... suggesting that at least one person was living or staying out there.