Inlé leaps up, sword pointed up, and rams the blade into the collector robot's head. There's a loud *BEEP* as the robot's eye lights flash red and yellow for several seconds before going out completely. Its gyros stop moving, and it falls to the ground with a *CRASH*.
The pounding coming from within the pod on the eastern wall intensifies, followed by muffled cries of distress.
"Stupid robots." Inlé says as he eyes them cautiously before hopping over to the tube with the sounds. "Your dad's in here, right?" he asks Sialea as he looks over the machinery for a way to open it.
A quick search of the pod reveals a beige panel with glowing teal buttons. At the bottom of the panel is a keycard slot--this one with a black stripe beside it.
Inlé hops up and slides the card in.
There's a *beep-beep-beeping* noise as the machine reads the card, and a little *chirp* as the card is ejected from the slot.
The lights on the pod blink for several moments before the pod's doors slide open. Lying against the interior of the pod is a man in once-fine wizard robes, his long black hair beginning to grey at the temples. His blue cloak is frayed at the hem, and his trousers are filthy and tattered, revealing trembling red legs beneath. His palms shake as the doors open, and when he sees who's come to rescue him, his terrified expression relaxes slightly.
He opens his mouth and gestures to Sialea, and unintelligible grunts of relief come from his mouth in a torrent.
Inlé stays to the side and adjusts his wolf skull.
Sialea felt a wave of relief as the last of the machines went down and quickly made her way over to where her father was. She was rather distracted so it could be forgiven that she did free him herself. Fortunately for her Inle was on top of the problem and used the card to open the pod. Sia looked in at her father and felt tears enter her eyes at the state he was in. She helped him sit up and then offered him her water skin as she said, "Here Papa, it's alright, you're safe now." She let him drink a little if he wanted and then asked, "Are you alright? Can you tell us what happened?"
Khonnir grabs the waterskin Sia offers and starts drinking desperately from it, spilling some on his robes.
He grunts again in response to her question...
An ambush by skeletal, four-armed beasts. Escaping them, only to blunder into this gods-forsaken place.
A pale, spider-like robot ambushing him as a gold-plated robot lays into his comrades. Fluid being forced into his veins.
Awakening in the pod you found him in. Needles. Needles. Driving into his head. Pain. Pain. Pain.
Needles driving into his legs. Pain. Pain pain pain agony. Then numbness. They cannot be moved.
Pain in his head. Something--some kind of machines so small even a fly would dwarf it--roiling through his head. Eating away at everything. Magic. Memories. Memories of you and Val.
Despair.
Gripping his holy symbol he lets the will of Nethys rush out over everyone, using pure magic to heal their wounds... and his.
Seeing his thirst, he rummaged through his packs for some of his rations handing it to his mentor.
Sialea was beginning to panic as she realized Papa was even worse shape than before the fight. She looked around the room desperately and said, "He has little machines inside of him, eating away at his mind. We have to stop them, get them out, or at least see if they can repair the damage." Looked back into her Papa's eyes in worry.
Edynn studies Sia's father with concern, considering what they could possibly do to help him.
"This is a medical room or lab of some kind, if they put them in in here, we should be able to take them out, right?" Inlé says as he begins roaming and looking over the room now that they weren't in the middle of combat.
Celen's healing magic does wonders for the party's wounds, closing them smoothly.
Some colour returns to Khonnir's face as the healing takes place, and he gobbles down the rations Celen offers him with gusto. He doesn't seem surprised by the giant android in the room with them.
Khonnir nods his head at Sialea twice. He holds his arms out, gesturing for someone to help him up, or carry him.
Sialea considered how they might be able to take out the tiny machines in Papa before they damaged him beyond all hope of repair. She wondered if there was a way to short out the tiny machines, maybe use the shock prob in some manner?
...that being said, you've also become quite familiar with this ruin's 'sterilization system', as it's so called. From your tinkering with its inner workings, you remember that the collection of nozzles and tubes that make up the system deliver a similar sort of tiny machines--these ones designed to cleanse the body of infections and toxins. The malfunctioning sterilizer at the entrance to the observation wing of the habitat dome is out of the question, but there was one all the way back at the entrance to the dome itself... the one that leads to the skulk village.
Sialea realized that the equipment in here wasn't safe to use, but she did remember that there was identical equipment in the room they came through to enter the first dome, equipment that wasn't malfunctioning. She looked to her companions with hope and said, "Quickly, bring Papa, I think I have a way to at least stop the damage but we have to go back to the entrance from the Skulk's layer." She seemed anxious and was worried they wouldn't agree, "Besides, if we can get there we can rest safely as well, I think we need that before moving further and Papa definitely does."
Inlé nods... but wasn't quite sutre how soemone of his size would be able to help.
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Khonnir's eyes widen and he grunts in supposed agreement.
Edynn scoops up the professor in her arms, easily carrying him as she follows Sia's lead.
Sensing Papa's desire to leave here as soon as they can her shoulders sagged and Sialea said, "I don't think he wants us to delay that long. It might be best to finish exploring this area first and see if we find a way out so we can get him to the Temple of Brigh, that's what he seems to want. Let me see if he knows of another way out."
Khonnir doesn't resist as Edynn scoops him out of his torture pod and starts clinging to her back, his hands visibly trembling.
Then an affirmative. An image of the temple crosses your mind, followed by an image of him clinging to Edynn's back as she swims through the Weeping Pond. His legs aren't moving, his eyes shut tight and his breath held tightly in his chest against the fouled waters.
There's nothing in his thoughts that suggests he knows of another way out. Only memories of pacifying the skulk village, passing through the first sterilization chamber into the dome, and a jumble of fuzzy memories, all with an undercurrent of panic.
She looked at her companions and said, "Papa doesn't know another way out of here and I don't know that we can make him wait. Even getting him to the purification room may not be enough." She sighed and said, "I think we need to get him back to the surface and that means now." She looked at the group and said, "Should we all go or only a couple of us. He believes you can get him to the surface safely Edynn."
"We should all go." Inlé says.
As they made their way to the underwater entrance to the place Sialea asked, "Does anyone have any rope? I thought we might be able to run a line from down her up to the surface. That would help is in getting back in and out again."
The walk back through the science deck is quiet and oddly unsettling. The only sounds that accompany the party and their crippled charge are the ringing of their own footsteps across the dusty, filthy skymetal floor, with discomforting *squelching* noises dogging them, lingering just on the edge of their hearing. Khonnir's hands don't stop trembling as Edynn easily carries him away from this prison of ruined technology.
As the party reaches the habitat dome and starts crossing the contained desert, Khonnir looks up at the ceiling-turned-red sky with surprise. Alas, there is no room for wonder in his haunted eyes; there may have been, once. But no longer. Following the trail, the party crosses the desert without incident, and reaches the purification chamber on the opposite end of the dome.
The oddly-quiet Waffles hasn't taken its dimmed eyes off of Khonnir this entire time. He growls at him, but makes no move to bite him. Evidently, the little blindheim's memory is long.
The purification chamber the party reaches is humming with life when the party reaches it. Aside from the nozzles and tubes on the walls, single glowing panels lie next to both doors leading out of the room. Underneath the panels is a small screen made of black crystal. On them is something in Androffan.
"Ενεργοποιήστε το σύστημα αποστείρωσης?"
Keeping an eye out as they retrace their steps Inlé will occasionally reach over to gently pet Waffles every time he hears growl.
Sialeal saw the panel and held up a hand as she said, "Wait, let's turn this on, it should clean out the existing things from Papa and make sure he doesn't get any worse." With that she reached out and activated the device.
Waffles is appreciative of the pats Inlé gives him.
The party gathers in the sterilization chamber as Sialea presses the glowing panel. The doors on either side of them slowly close, and the message under the panels changes.
"Παρακαλώ περιμένετε"
The humming noise rises to a *whhhhrrrrrrrr*, and Khonnir winces, his eyes darting all around at the machinery surrounding the party. After a few seconds more, several jets of pale blue steam flow from the nozzles pointing into the room. The smell of strange, stinging chemicals fills the room...
...and Khonnir's body noticeably relaxes. A sigh escapes his lips, and the tremors in his hands even out considerably.
But... the technological menace devouring him from the inside out is gone. Eradicated.
The panels power down, and the doors on either side of the party slide open.
"... well that happened." Inlé lets out as he wrinkled his nose under the wolf skull.
Still holding Konnir, Edynn looks to Sia. "Should we take him home now?"
Sialea nodded and said, "Yes, we can go ahead now, the stuff harming him has been neutralized but the damage is still done. He still can't walk and we need to get him to the temple of Brigh immediately." She looked at the group as they continued and said, "If anyone has some rope I want to string a line as we go back to the surface so we can more easily come back down here to explore later."
"Don't have any, sorry." the tiny bunny says.
"I do, you can get it out of my pack." Edynn says turning around.
Putting his sword down and with a quick hop Inlé is up on the Brawler's pack and digging for a second before producing the rope and quickly hopping back down.
With the question of rope resolved, the party makes their way back through the stark silence of the caverns underneath the Black Hill, coming back to the rank, foul waters they entered through. Though the water breathing spell cast upon them has worn off, it's a simple matter to have one of the stronger party members swim through and set up a line.
Eventually, the party emerges from the brackish, tainted waters of the Weeping Pond. The morning sun is rising in the sky, bathing the town in a soft, red glow. Khonnir looks upon the awakening streets with a mixture of great relief and quiet despondency... these are the people who placed their trust in him to solve the problems that plague their town.
But now is not the time for rumination on failure. The party, a nervous blindheim and a crippled mage in tow, follows the streets of Torch to the ever pungent, ever prominent statuaries of the temple of the Whisper in the Bronze. The few people who are out of bed at this hour take notice of them--and the man Edynn carries--and their eyes light up with a flash of hope.
By the time they reach the temple, a group of townspeople are following them, lingering outside the grounds of the temple for news of their councilor's health. The chapel appears to be empty, for now...
"If someone could be so kind as to inform Councillor Dolga Freddert that we have found master Baine and we have him at the temple you would be doing the town a favor.... Also please if someone could find the temple's priest."
He began doing his best to sound official and not worried.
"We will have time to answer your questions in a bit, there is no need to panic or anything."
He began making sure that Waffles was lead into the temple as well, no sense in making the poor creature even more uncomfortable.
Several of the townsfolk take heed of Celen's words and disperse, words of hope and whispers of praise on their lips. Quite a few of them stick around, but they don't crowd around the party.
A stirring comes from within the temple of Brigh itself--the redheaded android acolyte emerges from a vestibule in the back of the chapel, her normally emotionless eyes widening with shock. "Councilor Baine!"
She starts ushering the party inside. "Please, come inside immediately. I will find a cot for him."
Waffles tentatively follows Celen inside, whimpering quietly.
Edynn carries Khonnir in, following the priestess to where they could heal him properly.
Inlé follows the others, just a tad bit on the edge with all the humans around.
As they had progressed through the streets with Khonnir Sia made sure that she went close enough to their home that she could reach out to her sister and, if she found her there, relayed what had happened so far and told her to meet them at the temple. She realized just how nervous Waffles was, it was easy to tell, and reached down to the creature sending comforting thoughts to it and stroking it's head.
Before long, Khonnir is laid down on a small cot, and tended to by the redheaded android. The terrified councilor lets out a sigh of relief, and stares at the intricately decorated ceiling... or, rather, through it. His eyes do not focus on any single point, before he closes them and makes a half-circle over his heart with his hand.
A few minutes pass, and the doors to the temple of Brigh open once more. Practically storming into the temple are two figures--the dwarven councilor Dolga, dressed in little more than plain grey robes and rubbing sleep out of her eyes, and Artificer Joram Kyte. Kyte has dark circles under his eyes, and his hands are shaking. His smock is stained with what appears to be soot and grease.
Trailing behind them is the slight form of Val.
"Oh, praise be to Brigh!" Artificer Kyte exclaims as he half-runs, half-totters over to Khonnir's cot, and Dolga follows behind him, her eyes widening in surprise. "I thought you'd been gone and done for, Councilor!"
Khonnir just grunts in response. Dolga tilts her head at him before turning to the party.
"You folks know how to get a job done, I'll tell ya that. Now, what the hell's wrong with him? This ain't like him--bein' so tight-lipped."