"Okay," the plant whispers, "I will wait a little bit. Then I will eat red food, red food, red food..."
The cerebric fungus resumes wiggling its tendrils and twitching its roots.
Linpul slides a brown card to open the Southern door. It leads to a T-hallway (You are standing on the upper left part of the T). A trail of blood leads to a pair of double doors to the East. You also see a pair of double doors to the South, and the fork to the West has three doors, two single doors and a pair of double doors.
Linpul follows the trail of blood, hoping to spot whatever jumps at them first.
"Alright, let's follow the blood. Should be something gruesome."
Linpul opens the door with her keycard and sees the scene before her.
Metal desks sit to the north and south of this long room, yet the most distinctive features are a pair of odd, bedlike tables flanked by curving panels of blinking, pulsing lights. Moving armatures of metal extend out over the beds, each outfitted with glowing panes of glass and strangely glowing tools. The chamber reeks of blood, with great crimson stains splashed across the device, beds, and floor.
A blue and gray robot with four legs and tubes connected to blue liquid behind its back stares at you. It speaks with a robotic voice motioning to the bedlike tables.
"It assumes we are patients, and has asked us to lie down and wait for the doctor...."
Dr Lendaro addresses the robot.
"I'm curious. What species are you trained to treat?"
Linpul shudders at the sight.
"Makes you wonder what their doctor is. Also, don't lie down. And like I told you Rakdon, they aren't taking over the world. Not if we smash them hard enough with a good hammer. The future is paved with skymetal, and the robots are part of it, sometimes they are in the way, sometimes they have some nifty gadgets like that net gun we found earlier."
The medical drone points at Tarphesh. It chirps in Androffan.
The robot points at Dr. Lendaro. Its glowing blue eye seems to squint as it appraises him. A beam of light scans up and down the doctor's body.
Its voice becomes deeper and almost garbled.
"Holy spug, it's gone rogue! Get ready guys, this one might be tough. That or orcs are from outer space. Tar, I don't think they are do you know?"
Linpul keeps her shield up and draws her mace ready for a fight.
"Regardless, if it makes a sudden move, we smash it to bits and scrap it for parts."
"No, orcs are from underground driven up by the dwarves in the Quest for Sky. Everyone knows that, Lin." Tarphesh shakes his head. "Orcs from space..."
The robot shakes violently before launching itself at you.
1. Linpul, Rakdon
2. Medical Drone
3. Thera, Solaria, Lendaro, Tetsuda, Tarphesh
Linpul Drops her shield and draws her long hammer.
"Tetsuda, get ready to jump on it, let's do this."
Rakdon shakes in fear after seeing the robot. His body refuses to move.
The hamster starts having visions of thousands of skull-faced robots in a post apocalyptic landscape. Some kind of large machine is in the background, controlling them all.
The medical drone moves towards at an alarming speed at Linpul with its four feet. When it gets close, Linpul swings her long hammer at its feet. Her lucerne hammer strikes the front foot, but its other feet keep it up.
The robot tries to jam its needle fingers into the small gnome huntress.
It swings much higher than Linpul's head, likely targeting a human-sized opponent instead. Its voice speaks from its core.
Dr Lendaro aims and fires. "It apparently is under the impression you are afflicted with some condition which requires being stabbed viciously.... Poor design if you ask me."
Dr. Lendaro's bullet punches a hole through one of the robot's core coils. Electricity runs along its body. Its voice screeches from its core.
Tarphesh charges forward and swings his greatsword in a wide arc. The blade slices through one of the metal pauldrons and through a tube of blue liquid, which splashes onto the operating tables.
"I don't know what you're saying, but I feel fine!"
Solaria keeps away from the robot, and speaks, "Desna, give your blessing to those who travel in your name."
HPs: 14/14
Channel 5 used of 7 today
Door Sight 2 min of 6 mins today
Spells used today: Prot Evil, Bless
Thera activates Inspire Courage, filling the air with fighting music hoping to increase her friends morale.
Rakdon's hand shakes and his acid splashes against the ground in front of the robot. The medical drone glances at it with a glowing blue eye, then turns its attention towards a dangerous member of the party.
Tetsuda moved in to attack the creature, but his mandibles could not sink through the metal.
---Linpul---
The gnome would take a 5ft step to move to the side, if the robot continued to attack her perhaps Tetsuda could move in to flank when he could.
The medical drone jabs its claw into Tarphesh.
He grunts as the fingers stab into his arm.
Tetsuda moved to flank with Linpul.
---Linpul---
Manuevering a bit around the robot Linpul swings her hammer in an overhand chop. Unlike her companion she could benefit from Solaris' song.
"For those of us who fight in melee let's surround and corner it, for those at a bit of range keep out of it's reach and attack whenever an opportunity pops up. Let's see if we can knock it off balance."
Dr Lendaro reloads, aims, and fires. "Yes... we will keep 'paint it red and feed to plant' as Plan B."
With her shield held high, Solaria approaches the robot with her morningstar and tries to smash through its metal casing to rip into it's wiring. "Let the metal machines of madness crumble before our might."
Thera maintains her bardic performance, but otherwise makes no other move as yet, unsure if any spells she has access to can affect the creature.
Lendaro's bullet punctures the blue crystal eye of the robot. Electricity arcs out and up to the ceiling from the damage. A distorted voice, like a recording escapes from its sound box.
Rakdon's acid splashes at one of the operating tables, burning a small hole in the corner.
Solaria makes a glancing blow on the metal creature, striking its hand and cracking a few of its needle fingers.
Finally, Linpul and Tetsuda strike at the creature. The beetle's mandibles dig into the medical drone's metal foot, as the gnome's lucerne hammer smashes its face.
You hear deep, disturbing laughter come out of the robot before its limbs and head sink down, and it stops moving.
Metal desks sit to the north and south of this long room, yet the most distinctive features are a pair of odd, bedlike tables flanked by curving panels of blinking, pulsing lights. Moving armatures of metal extend out over the beds, each outfitted with glowing panes of glass and strangely glowing tools. The chamber reeks of blood, with great crimson stains splashed across the device, beds, and floor.
A recently damaged and powered down medical drone is standing in front of the tables.
Her hammer knocking the robot out Linpul rests the hammer on the ground while scratching her head a bit.
"Dominion of Black? What could that be? Whatever it is, it doesn't sound good. In the meantime, salvage law is very generous, let's see what makes this one tick."
Using the small hole she punched into the robot with her hammer Linpul takes a peek inside.
"Those desks might have information about this room, while I'm here taking the dangerous one apart would anybody like to go take a look? Ooh if I pull this chord his hand moves. Look Tar, I can make it wave!"
She deepens her voice a bit and covers her mouth with her hand while pulling the chord.
"Hello there civilians, I am here to turn you into paste for the plant thing outside, lay on the bed and die or else."
She drops the hand and giggles a bit while continuing to tear into the robot.
Linpul takes apart the medical drone and notices that many of its wires and circuits are blackened. The insides are very damaged. If you have empty vials you can take some of the liquid. The syringes are connected to the robot and can't be removed without destroying them.
There is nothing of value inside the drawers.
"Yes.. of course." Dr Lendaro begins searching the south desk, and the area around it.
"And I am impressed to find you have yet another skillset."
Looking up from the robot, Linpul smiles a big toothy grin.
"Oh Dr. you would be surprised at what you can find in one of these tin cans. This one has some strange syringe like things attached to it. Maybe we could drain them. Are there any vials or bottles of any sort near the desk? I can't remove these syringes without breaking them. The liquid inside could be any number of things. Usually helpful with some kind of side effect. The table over there is supposed to help people but instead it's been hurting them. Would you want to help me see if we can get these tables working properly? Perhaps they have some kind of power source better than the silverdisks."
Moving over to the tables Linpul takes a look at it in detail trying to figure out where to start. A glint in her eyes says just about everything as she is looking to possible tear into the table, but she can do a bit of building, she just wasn't good at it.
Linpul's eyebrow furrows a bit as she pulls out her thieves tools. Taking a moment to cast a guidance spell she dives into the table. If she couldn't turn them back on she would disable them so nobody could get hurt again.
"Scratch that Dr. These things can't be fixed, but we can make sure they don't hurt anybody else. Let's see if I can pull anything useful out of this sucker. Ooh, this is interesting, plenty of things that could be sold in town if they worked."
Linpul finds a clear, transparent wand-like object with a reservoir and stopper at its ends, several scalpels, and a pair of grippers. Everything else attached to the metal armatures would not work if removed or broken already.
As the machine crumbles, and the laugh is heard, Solaria is taken aback. "Who's that? Linpul, was that the robot that laughed?" she asks. She stands looking around, not sure what it was, or is?
After a few moments as Linpul and Rakdon search through the heap of bits, "I don't know why you do that? It is tainted, it should be left to rust." she looks down with disdain at the battered metal. "Did it manage to injure anyone?" she asks, "Let me look at you, in case the poison in it's fingers has harmed you?"
Solaria, then begins to follow the trails of blood, "Whatever was done here? It is mad, was it that metal thing? Feeding that plant next door? This place is horrible." and looks at the strange medical equipment.
Solaria looks at recent wounds, checking eyes, and blood, and examining the robot's blue liquid. No one seems to be be poisoned, drugged, or in any way disabled.
The medical tables look like they could be useful. The metal armatures above have scalpels, syringes, clamps, and grippers, and other useful medical tools. You believe, however, with Linpul's warning and the amount of blood in the room, that they were recently not used to help people.
"These tables are more like torture tables than medical aids." says Solaria. "You know these fights are taking it out of me a bit, do you think we should go back to town and recover? Staying down here amongst all this .... metal mayhem doesn't make me feel safe, or that I will be of much use to you. I can look through doors for a few more times, and can only do a little healing, though I do have one more spell left to shield me or one of you in a fight. If we do go back, then do we retrace our steps and try and get by the vicious little plant, or we find a new way." Solaria tells the group.
"And we should remember to take the skeletal remains of that strange warrior we fought. We can take its remains outside and let its death be permanent. If we leave it there, it will just as like rise again. We would have to fight it tomorrow or the day after."
Climbing out from under the table she produces the trinkets she found and was able to remove.
"We're fine Solaria, thank you for checking on us though. Let's see if any of this can be used to help people again. This table will not be able to hurt anyone anymore. However there is a cable that leads to a power source, if we could follow it perhaps we could relight the fires of Torch! This is all very exciting indeed."
"Hmmm. I had not considered returning to town. I suppose considering we not traveled a great distance, it could be an option. We would likely need to better deal with the skulks however."
Dr Lendaro then attempts to nudge Solaria away from the idea "We have rested since we've begun - without incident. We could fall back to a room more defensible?"
Dr Lendaro does a double take with Linpul's remark about the cable.
"Ooh really?"
The passage underneath the bed is very small. Likely Linpul, Tetsuda and Rakdon can squeeze through, but the other medium sized adventurers will have trouble. The bulk of the cables seem to head to a floor above you.
Thera considers both options "I don't particularly mind either way, although my resources are not quite as spent yet as Solaria's appear to be. Resting here or resting in the town both has its pro's and cons, and I can favour either option"
Tarphesh yawns.
"Let's check the another room. Maybe we can rest there. This one has blood and broken gadgetry everywhere."
The half-orc trudges out of the room, and starts walking to the southern double doors.
Tarphesh opens the door with a brown keycard, growls, "Khonnir! You bastards are gonna be heaps of scrap!" and charges into the room.
A row of beds sits along the southern wall of this well - lit room. Glowing screens and metal desks sit on the opposite walls, and splatters of blood adorn the floor and several of the beds. To the east, a large metal device that is the size of a large bed hums softly.
Inside the metal device is Khonnir Baine. His eyes are white, his legs seem limp and still, and his bleeding fingers clutch desperately at the transparent screen in front of him. His mouth is curled in a scream, though no words escape it.
Hovering over a bed is a flying robot, a few rotors keeping it aloft. Spindly long fingers come out of long arms, and a strange gun-like protrusion comes out of its chest. Beside this bed is another blue and gray medical drone.
"Come quick, Linpul out of there... Tarphesh has found Khonnir...and more unfriendlies from the sounds of it!" Solaria follows Tarpesh, but keeps out of the way, allowing Linpul and her friend easy access. She keeps her shield up and her morningstar ready.
The medical drone chirps in Androffan.
1. Tarphesh, Thera
2. Robots
3. Lendaro, Rakdon, Linpul, Solaria, Tetsuda
Dr Lendaro steps into the room, and pops off an unsure shot at the flying robot.
"Hmmm Maybe I'd best not have it come shattering down on the man."
He tries to keep from glancing at Linpul... others emotions ran the risk of confounding his focus.
But Khonnir's face... enough to give him chills....
Linpul having been silent and smiling hopeful of seeing Mr. Baine again was horrified by the sight of the man who took her in. Her jaw dropped while seeing the man in his current state. Quickly though her eyes slanted in anger. Her tiny knuckles turned white as her grip tightened around the hammer.
"We aren't patients, and neither is Mr. Baine. Tetsuda, defend Mr. Baine. In the meantime I have some flying robots to smash."
Solaria calls out as she steps out of the room, "I have magic which can hide you in a mist, if you can get Khonnir out of there, hopefully the doors will stop those machines getting out." Solaria puts her morningstar on her belt, before dropping her bag and looks for her scroll, pulling it out of the bag.
Eyes bright with anger, Thera launches into a tune, hoping to inspire her friends into greater acts of valor.