Nyssa decides to trust Kraig to keep hold of the robot. She moves to optimal bow range, then looses an arrow at Purple Tentacle.
Nyssa's arrow flies, misses a tentacle and threads into an open hole of the coral shell. You hear a sharp whistling sound, then the tentacles writhe before falling around the white coral stone, like thick damp strands of hair.
You hear the repair drone shout in a metallic voice.
Kraig releases Brobot and angrily rips the net off himself. "What was that voice? That girls voice that came from you. What's going on here? Where is she?"
He swivels his body and sees the ghelarn, then turns back around to Kraig.
Valt scratches his head wile shaking it in disbelieve.
How we did get to this point?
Then, tries to explain Aurusk why not to kill the automat, and gives him Kraig's motives for it. Knowing about Aurusk deafness, he taps his shoulder, goes in front of him and tries to speak calmy and vocalizing, without exaggerating it.
Aurusk shakes his head, putting the point of his glaive to the ground. This is insane. But I will follow.
It speaks Androffan with its robot voice. Then, shambles along through the desert, clearly not following the footprints imprinted on the ground. It moves in a Northeastern direction.
At first glance, this cold cavern presents a strange and disconcerting vista-that of a desert valley under a starless, night sky. A stretch of sand covers the ground, a vista broken here and there by bits of strange, spiky shells or contorted, dead fronds that look like branches.
Then it stops, in the middle of nowhere. Its red eyes scan the vicinity.
Nyssa shrugs, as long as the automaton remains docile, it can continue it's existence as a functioning machine. The Suli worries, though. The erratic machine seems likely to run amok at the worst possible time.
Kraig drops to his knees and cradles his head in his hands. "I didn't bring enough alcohol for this. I don't know what I expected, really. Say we go back to the entrance to this underground desert and see if there's a trail to follow?"
The repair drone points to a dark space in the rocky wall about 30 ft to the North, then bolts towards it at full speed.
Before you can follow, the sands around you shake, and seven skeletal figures burst from the ground. They have four arms and long elongated heads. They surround you in a semicircle to the South, and are about 20 feet away from you.
1. Skeletons
3. Everyone
The monstrous skeletons move close and swing their claws at you, digging into armor and flesh.
"Ah, skeletons. Quite weak creatures, you find them sometimes in the Mana Wastes. These ones have four arms, but I'm sure those are just for decoration. Use a blunt weapon, if you have one, though I, unfortunately, do not."
Gavin dodges the four armed undead's swing, then stabs at the creature's spine with his swordcane.
He misses, though his weapon stabs through ribs.
"Well, I'm sure that would have finished it off, had it hit. By the way, might someone have a club they could lend me."
Valt gets surprised by the sudden attack, and decides to move behind Iophiels back. While doing it, he fills Iophiel with magic.
Hold on, Iophiel, finish your own opponent first!
"Yeah you run and hide after we've saved your robot life!"
Kraig attacks the closest monster. His frustration with Brobot makes his first fist inaccurate.
Aurusk looks around, while his glaive is nice, he has nothing blunt as Gavin suggests. Finally, he shrugs, and concentrates, a shadowy cloak surrounds him, making him harder to see.
Nyssa takes a hop back, away from the skeleton.
Once out of the reach of it's too many, arms, Nyssa selects a white feathered arrow from her quiver. Drawing back she lets fly at the closest skeleton.
Iophiel, Kraig and Nyssa take out their skeletal enemies. Aurusk disappears in shadow.
Alexis strikes out with her rapier.
Her blade gets caught in the skeleton's ribs unable to find a solid hit. She pulls it out and steps back.
As Valt ducks behind Iophiel, the skeleton swings its arm at the summoner but misses.
The remaining skeletons converge on the party, swinging their claws in a frenzy.
7 damage to Aurusk.
8 damage to Gavin.
4 damage to Iophiel.
"This is not good. I think I will leave the rest of the fight to you fine individuals." Gavin coughs up blood. He holds his side where the skeleton sliced through his soft Alkenstar flesh. "It is a sad day that I forgot my rifle."
Gavin withdraws behind Valt and Iophiel.
Alexis calls upon the magic within her to enhance her attack
"I'll save you Gavin!" Kraig rushes the skeleton with Gavin's blood on its hand-claws and plants a fist firmly in its alien face.
With a bit of luck and magic, Alexis manages to strike the skeleton with a near perfect thrust of her rapier. Its bones topple over into the sand, face down.
The skeleton face that Kraig punched, cracks and splinters. The force of his blow knocks the undead creature to the sand. It doesn't get back up.
"Kasatha," Aurusk murmurs, snapping back from his vision.
Valt continues sheltering behind Iophiel. He is no warrior, but has his own tricks.
We barely got them!
Iophiel, enraged from the wound, swings his sword wildly against the skeleton.
Iophiel's greatsword crashes down on the skeleton, crushing it against the sand. The undead creature flails its arms uselessly as the blow squishes it.
Aurusk steps back swinging his glaive at the remaining . . . Kasatha?.
Aurusk chops through the joints of the bones, and the creature collapses in a heap of tangled arms and legs. You notice a green glow fade from its eyes.
Nyssa sees that the last skeleton is shattered. She lowers her bow.
"I wonder if those skeletons came from graves or if they were buried for an ambush."
Nyssa moves to where the skeletons emerged from the ground to find out. While she is at it, Nyssa has a look at the ghelarn, as well. Maybe the creature's previous victims dropped something of value.
Aurusk reaches down to his side, touching it lightly.
Is anyone else injured?
"Brobots betrayal has left an injury in my heart. Can you heal that?"
Barely a scratch, don't worry. Says Valt to to Aurusk, then, starts looking for the automat.
Where is the "Brobot", where did it go?
Gavin drinks a strange potion from his pack. It glows with a faint blue light. The scratches in his body mend together. He removes his hat and wipes sweat off his brow.
"I watched that 'Brobot' go North to that cave. Should we chase after it, oh bearded one? Or perhaps follow those footprints we saw earlier..."
Gavin gestures North and East with his swordcane.
Nyssa finds sand where the skeletons came from. Moving back to the ghelarn coral, she searches through the mass of tentacles and finds 2 sticky silverdisks, 2 adamantine arrows, and a masterwork longsword, lodged deeper in the stalks of purple flesh.
Nyssa shows the items she found to the rest of the group. "Adamantine. These arrows are really special."
"Sword is of superior craftsmanship, better than mine. Do any of you need these?" Nyssa can get good use out both the arrows and the sword, but she doesn't want to be greedy.
"I vote for following the footprints. They might be Khonnor's party."
"finders keepers"
Says Valt with a smile.
Nah, seriously, you will make good use of it so, for what I'm concerned, keep them.
Following the footprints are ok for me too, after all we are here to find Khonnor and those footprints are our only clue.
Waving goodbye to brobot, your party goes back to the west side of the desert cavern, then follows the footprints through the center and then South. The footprints then head back slightly north into a small cavern, where they stop at a wall.
A crisp glow of light shines from the northern wall of this cavern, although no obvious source of the light is apparent.
"Surprise surprise. Another wall."
"Something fishy going on here." Kraig throws a rock at the wall where the lights are coming through.
The rock goes through the wall. It makes a noise as it strikes something...metal.
"It looks like a wall. I've never seen a rock pass through a solid wall like that, though."
Nyssa pokes at the wall with the point of an arrow.
Nyssa's arrow passes through the wall with no resistance as though it is an illusion.
"Ha! This wall is not real."
Nyssa puts her valuable bow in it's case on her back. Then, with shield on arm and the new sword in hand, Nyssa cautiously moves up to examine the first (open) door.
You see Nyssa walk through the wall.
Nyssa sees a metal door. It is a nice grayish metal, much lighter in color than the dark gray metals that comprise the walls and ceiling. Above, panels of metal illuminate the door and pierce out into the fake wall. Beyond the door she can hear faint, "Shhhh" and buzzing noises.
Gavin stands perplexed. He had seen such strange things in the Mana Wastes around Alkenstar, but not illusions.
He tries to peer through the wall.
"Oh, I see. Well, there are explanations behind everything, even magic. "
Adjusting his brimmed hat, Gavin walks through the wall with a confident gait.
Apparently Kraig still thinks the wall is real, even though he discovered the foul sorcery.
Thanks to his partners discoveries, Valt disbelieves the wall with easy.
So, where are we now?
Valt enters the room behind the wall, and examines all the panels and the door looking for something written on them.
Iophiel tries to go through the illusory wall too, and once inside watches the humming door and waits for the others.
This metal room is brightly lit by glowing panels in the ceiling above. To the left and right, complex machines consisting of spiral tubes and nozzles twitch and hum.
After several seconds, water sprinkles out of the nozzles and a current of electricity bounces randomly from wall to wall. This repeats again after several seconds.
Weird. Why all this.
alexis looks curiously at the sparks.
"I don't know, but it looks dangerous." Nyssa is familiar with electricity, she can generate a harmful jolt of the stuff if the need arises, so she has seen what it can do.