Nortmog spends his time reloading the weapon, putting a bullet and powder into the shaft of the musket. It takes him a while to do it.
Large Aurusk moves into the room and faces off with the flying drone. He swings his glaive like swatting down a fly. Despite his increased damage, Aurusk's blade deflects off its metal body.
Valt moves now near alexis, an gives her some magic energies for the fight, and then instructs Iophiel to move an attack the flying automat-
Iophiel moves with caution, and attacks the flying machine with its greatsword...
...but with an impossible rotation of his metal body, the automat dodges the metal blade.
"I will wipe out your entire genus, flying brobot!" Kraig throws his last shortspear at the last robot.
Iophiel and Kraig attack the metal brobot but miss.
The metal robot strikes at Iophiel with its hands. Its metal fingers slap the eidolon in the face and knock the angel down.
Valt curses the automat, as Iophiel fades to nothingness. A bit sad, but knowing is just a temporal departure, Valt brings another creature to the fray. An equine creature appears from the air, side by side to the automat, but between it and the injured Kraig.
Well, I fear that the best I can offer is a meat shield. -Says the summoner with some remorse on his voice.
The little horsey kicks the flying robot with a high kick, but only scratches its tough exterior.
"Uh, it seems too powerful. Or at least our weapons aren't doing anything. I'd tell you more about it, but I couldn't recall any of my knowledge of robots, or brobots." Nortmog points his musket and fires at the flying monster. His bullet embeds itself in the armor. Aurusk swipes his large glaive at the creature hoping to cut off its rotors and pierces through its tough flesh.
Normal weapons seem to do next to nothing to the flying robot, Nyssa decides to try her elemental attack. Still holding her bow in her off hand, Nyssa draws her sword and charges the construct. As she goes, she charges the weapon with electricity.
Nyssa's charged strike hits the bot and it seems to do a little more damage to the metal body. Trying to cut through is exactly like trying to cut a metal shield.
Alexis strikes
Alexis' rapier strikes the armor of the robot and bounces off. She can feel the reverberations in the metal shake her hand.
Kraig takes a moment to catch his breath.
The flying brobot fires a pulse from its chest at Kraig.
nonlethal
She really hates to do it, her bow is an expensive piece of hardware, but Nyssa drops the bow. Gripping her sword in both hands she slashes at the robot hoping to find a joint or something.
Valt gets behind Nyssa and gives her his last amount of magic energies, making her grow to a large size.
Hope this gets helpful to break those metal plates.
The pony gives another couple of kicks to the automat, but again, his hooves are not hard enough to dent the automat's metal plates.
Nyssa assaults the flying robot and strikes it with her electrified longsword. The lightning intensifies for a moment and manages to deal additional damage to the construct. Suddenly, she is surrounded by magic and grows larger.
Aurusk swings his glaive at the thing. "What kind of madness is this? It resists physical attacks and magic? These creatures are certainly aberrations." His blade cuts through a rotor's outer shell but continues to rotate and keep the creature aloft.
Nortmog reloads his musket, huffing as he does so. "Just you wait, you stupid robots. I'm gonna make some adamantine bullets for ya, and make you eat them."
Alexis strikes again, hoping to do more than score its paint
Sparks fly as she fails to do so
"Surprise! I'm a doctor of the martial arts!"
The flying robot does not seem amused by Kraig's joke. In a deadpan robot voice it says,
It continues to trail off different disciplines as it smacks Kraig with its fists. It misses, clearly distracted with correcting Kraig's mistake.
"Wrong! I'll take you back to school!"
Kraig jumps up, makes quick strikes with his hands and holds onto the flying robot. He drops down to the ground with the unstruggling robot to the ground.
Aurusk takes a swing at the metal monster and misses, nearly throwing his weapon from his grasp.
Nortmog shrugs his shoulders.
"Well, I'm not useful in this fight. I'll just start looting now. You guys probably got this, yeah?"
The dragon-goblin pokes through the desks and stuffs things into his bags.
Gathering some last bits of his exhausted magic energy, Valt taps on Nyssa shoulder and gives it to her, helping her to accomplish his actions. Guidance on Nyssa.
Nyssa moves to flank the robot.
Then she slashes out with her sword.
Nyssa's large longsword cuts into the grappled flying construct. Her weapon bites into the tough metal of the robot. Suddenly, its three eyes darken, and its limbs become limp against its metal frame. Its rotors stop turning, and the collector robot powers down.
Nortmog waddles over and shows off all the loot he found from the desks. "Tons of stuff in here."
Gadgets
-a timeworn handheld gadget with lines on it and a wand attached
-two canisters filled with gray dust
-a gun like device with a brown stripe
-a clear tube with a stopper and an open area
-two vials labeled Hemochem I
Magic and Mundane
-a magical wand
-two potions of cure light wounds
-mwk dagger
-three scrolls
-magical amulet
-60 gp
Khonnir slumps to the ground. He tries to crawl but does not have the strength. He babbles and drools along the floor.
Good work, that one was tough -Says Valt while moving into Khonnir.- Whatever he has, is more than just physhical damage, we must bring him to Torch.
If we hurry, we can use the little horse, as I can bring him back for a few minutes more.
Valt with Aurusk's help, puts Khonnir atop the pony.
"Hey, you can summon transportation. That's pretty useful." Nortmog says. He hands out the items to whoever wants them.
If Khonnir has obvious injuries, Alexis casts a cure light wounds on him
We should get him back to towns quickly. How are we going to swim him out though? He's not lucid and could drown.
Healing light surrounds Khonnir. His dark pupils return to his eyes, but he continues to babble, laugh and drool. He also is unable to move his legs, though this is not a problem as he is sitting on the pony.
You start to head back the way you came to the desert. When you do reach it, Valt expends magical power to keep the pony summoned.
Eventually you reach the cavern entrance.
As the party moves Alexis considers the problem of Khonnir and the dark swim out of the caverns.
We have two options I think. One is for someone to hold his mouth and nose closed and swim out. This is a problem as he may panic and thrash about. The second is to get help from the town. Perhaps someone can come and cast waterbreathing on him, or has a potion of it. There is also an alchamitical device call an air bottle that may do the trick. Anyone else got any ideas?
Nortmog looks through his extracts and searches his pack. The goblin shakes his head.
"Sorry, bub. I don't got any such potions or anything like that. Maybe we just gotta brute force it, and heal up the guy afterwards. Get someone big and strong to do the dirty work." He glances at Kraig.
Nyssa collects her bow from where she dropped it. "How soon does this... Bigness wear off? She asks Valt. It feels strange to loom over everyone.
_ _ _ _ _ _
At the water's edge Nyssa produces a coil of rope from her pack. "If we bind Khonnir, he won't be able to flail about. Should make it easier to bring him to the surface safely."
Kraig stares longingly into the distance as they pass through the desert again. "I miss my brother. I hope he's alright. Aahh, I'm so tired. I don't think those robots were trying to save anyone. Maybe the color-changing lady knows another way out. I could ask, I think she likes me."
Before you reach the cave entrance, you pass through the Skulk's cave. They do not seem to be home, at least as far as you can tell with your eyes. Peeking into their homes, they do not seem to be present.
Tying Khonnir with rope, Kraig carries the wizard through the underwater passageway. You resurface at the shore. Khonnir coughs up the dirty water clearing his lungs. He starts to babble.
The earth shakes under your feet for about a minute, before stopping. It is about afternoon.
"We need to get Khonnir to The Temple of Brigh as soon as we can. Maybe Joram Kyte can cure him of whatever madness afflicts him." Nyssa looks to the peak where the Torch should be. "It would be nice to get the Torch burning again. It would help my business prospects."
Aurusk suddenly stares up at the heavens, seeing stars that you cannot see. He murmurs, "The dark tapestry is calling me elsewhere... I must leave you now..." He walks off without turning back into the distance.
"Huh, well that was interesting. Don't worry, I'm here until this mission is complete, at least. I'm just gonna make some adamantine bullets." The goblin glances at Khonnir. "Yeah, I'm not really good at the healing thing. I'll catch up with you later."
Nortmog takes the 60 gp and leaves the rest of the items with Nyssa. Then he wanders off somewhere into Torch.
The rest of you take Khonnir Baine to the Temple of Brigh.
Joram Kyte appears with several acolytes of Brigh and begin to heal him.
"I can heal some of his damage and remove the disease, but it will take some time for Khonnir to recover. There was some kind of numbing pharmaceutical in his legs, and thousands of nanites in his brain. I have removed both of these things."
Khonnir lies on a bed inside the temple. He breathes weakly and is in a deep sleep.
"I will bring him to his house tonight. Please find some rest, and see Dolga Freddert for your reward."
The ground shudders again for about a minute.
"We've been having more of those recently, but the torch hasn't returned. It seems it might be a dark portent."
As the party leaves the temple alexis says, we should tell his daughter about his recovery, and then we should celebrate. I can use a drink. What do you all think?
Thats a great idea.
I'll go to meet Dolga and communicate our succes on finding Khonnir, and our firm decision on continue searching the black coves, and find a way to bring back the flame. Those shakes are not a good sings, and they must be related.
Do we meet in Khonnir's tavern?
Valt, Alexis, Nyssa and Kraig head to the Foundry Tavern. You find Val Baine in the tavern eating some soup and bread, most of it is untouched.
"Hello everyone."
There is a roasted pig on one of the tables with bits cut from its body, and an assortment of vegetables, some boiled, some picked to the side.
"I cut off some of the bad parts, so the pig should be good."
"Hi Val." Nyssa smiles at the younger woman. "I suppose you heard by now. We found your father. Priest says he'll be fine in time, and can come home tonight."
Nyssa's eyes take in the roast pig. "That smells delicious. I could go for some chops."
"Some of the bad parts? How long has this boar been dead?" Kraig takes some bread and ale. "Val, are there ways to...extract information from those automatons? I met my long lost baby robot brother down there, but he wasn't keen on sharing where he had been and what he had been up to since we were separated at birth." Kraig lays his head on the table, feeling too weak from the evil brobot attacks to eat right now.
Well, some of the food around these parts is infected with mutations from drinking the water or eating the plant life. You know this, Mr. Forge-Hammer. Unless we import it from the River Kingdoms or Mendev or somewhere even farther. I cut out all the green meat, so it should be fine."
Val Baine scratches her head.
"Well, if I robot still has its memory unit intact, you might be able to pull information. But you also need a machine that can do that also."
Nyssa has some of the meal. Afterwards she sits with an ale, contemplating the recent action. She twirls the adamantium tipped arrow they found, in her fingers.
"Do you think one of the shops would have weapon blanch, Val? That last robot had really tough plating. Some adamantium blanch for my arrows seems like a good idea."
Val thinks about it for a moment.
"Maybe the potion shop has it, or the merchants in the market. I'm sure you can find it somewhere in Torch."