Reep darts past the metal monster and grabs Jeji's cocoon. He's left in an exposed position as the creature follows him rotating at the waist to bring the seemingly endless little cabinets of nets to bear. A fourth net fires ensnaring the final kobold!
Sa'rah'then'al hisses with anger and continues to attempt to break free.
Drahlneep falls back some from the metal monster's reach and attempts to break free of the trapping net.
With all of her companions ensnared in the nets of their foe, Jeji begins to panic. She thrashes wildly about in the net trying to escape, to no avail.
Reep slithers out of the net as the living statue or whatever it is grabs the trailing rope of the net and begins dragging Jeji ahead into the next chamber. The strange swarm of tiny bug things appear to have already repaired what little damage has been inflicted.
"Bring him back!" Drahlneep snarls at the metal kidnapper as he struggles against the net.
Being dragged away from her tribe had pushed Jeji way past frantic and into full on panic mode. She squirmed and wiggled as much as she could, which only seemed to secure the netting even more. She gulped nervously as her eyes were as wide as saucers. Her life was quickly flashing before her eyes.
Reep grabs Saranthenal and tries to aid his escape attempts!
The remaining kobolds panic as their warrenmate is dragged off. Reep tries to get Sarahthenal out, but the inquisitor just seems to getting himself more tightly bound.
Drahlneep curses loudly and struggles once more to break free of the net.
Sa'rah'then'al lets out a guttural scream of anger at the escaping enemy. He thrashes about angrily not liking the possibility of losing another kobold to the mission so soon.
Finally, with a member of the war band gone from view and possibly in dire danger, Drahlneep and Sarahthenal slip loose of the entangling nets!
Sa'rah'then'al looks around at the others and hisses in fury as he starts charging after where the statue had taken his tribesmen. "We must make haste, we will not lose our fellow kobold." he said as he took off.
With a cry of frustration from both watching Jeji being dragged off as he struggled helplessly in the net and from the exertion of breaking free of the net, Drahlneep bangs his spear against his shield and follows close behind.
Jeji continues to attempt to escape her bindings. Her thrashing had apparently opened enough of a hole for her to scurry out of. She tries to duck behind a cage or table to take cover from her captor.
The rest follow Jeji's captor's route into a small room. The northern wall of this otherwise empty metal room is a tangle of what look to have once been strange cages of some sort. Tangled amid the metal ribs of these cages are ribs of a more organic nature—the ancient bones of some sort of alien creature. Smaller mounds of rubble lie against the opposite wall. Another portal across the room remains open and is likely the route the metal monster took.
Jeji quickly looks for a place to hide. Without her pack mates around to protect her, she is still quite fearful of her surroundings. Her curiosity sated for the moment, the panic retains a firm grip on her. She tries hard to keep from shaking and regain her composure before deciding on what to do next.
Drahlneep allows his rage to subside, despite feeling the full weight of the fatigue. He keeps his weapons ready but looks to his new clutch-mates to see how they want to proceed.
Sa'rah'then'al looked around for a brief moment to check for his comrade or things of interest as he rushed through the room to find his comrade. He knew they could come back and scour the room later once he had them all back together.
Reep hisses low in his throat. "What ssshall we do?"
Reep hisses low in his throat. "What ssshall we do?"
Sarahthenal barely gives Reep a look as he continues forward searching for Jeji. Fortunately, he doesn't have far to go. He finds her in the next small chamber which holds two strange machines sitting to the north and south against the walls, their faces appear similar to coils of metal tubes with several nozzle-like protrusions pointing into the room itself. Jeji is peering cautiously back at him from the opposite portal.
The reunited kobolds wonder how long before the metal thing realizes it has lost its captive and returns...
"I need some time to catch my breath," Drahlneep says through gasps, "What do you make of those?" he asks, pointing to the machines with nozzles.
Huddled in the corner, Jeji slipped a bomb flask out of her pack and grasped it tightly in her hands. More than anything, it helped to calm her nerves. She was relieved to be out of the net but was fearful that the creature would return. Being alone was nothing new to Jeji, and being in the dark was the life of a kobold, but seeing another scaled face was more than reassuring to her, it was inspiring. She collected herself and stood up. She ran over and hid behind the closest ally pointing in the direction that the thing went. "That way, it went that way."
Sa'rah'then'al calms down a bit as he finds his lost compatriot. He stops and mulls a bit at the situation. "First...we investigate the rooms, but keep ready and alert in case it comes back. It was very tough...we need more tools." he said as he looked about.
With her fear subsided, Jeji begins to look around at the room they are in. She hadn't realized it before, but now that she has a chance to take her in surroundings, she becomes awe-struck. The coiled metal tubes, the nozzle-like protrusions, she had never seen anything like it. In fact, now thinking back to the construct they had just encountered, she hadn't seen anything like it either. She began to take notes and make sketches in the back of her formula book and wondered where it all came from, maybe from a time long forgotten.
These walls does not look safe, but what do I know? More importantly, it doesn't look natural. Who built such a place? Drahlneep wonders as he struggles to catch his breath.
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The kobold's quickly dig through the rubble in the cage room mining out anything of value. They find two more of the heavy silver coin-like discs. These, however, are not quiescent metal, but have glowing runes upon them. They also dig up a pair of tongs quite like a black smith's tool, but exquisitely made so that they can lock and clamp two things together in a near unbreakable grip.
Finally, Jeji digs out an interesting device that appears to be a handle with long thin jointed metal rods coming out of it quite like the fine thieves' tools Ipmerk had. Jeji deduces that these are picks that may work on the strange portals found in this dungeon. She also finds a little compartment at the end that holds another glowing rune disk and now thikgs that these must be some sort of device to power the technology of the ancient beings who built this place!
The kobolds have only a moment to ponder all this before the familiar and frightening buzzing sound of the returning metal creature is heard from the passage beyond.
Drahlneep, despite his fatigue, immediately snaps to attention and picks up his weapon and shield.
Sa'rah'then'al pulls the whip out and tries to find himself a nice high spot that he can tawack him from without being in easy reach.
Sarahthenal easily clambers up the cages to find a high place to strike.
"Everyone should be ready to ambush this thing...I'll be the focus, the distraction." And hope it pays more attention to me than the others.
Jeji:
Sahrahthenal:
Drahlneep:
K-catcher:
Drahlneep stands in the middle of the room as the others move off to the side. Sarahthenal waits tensely from his perch on the cages. The creature enters the room and stops to inspect the armed kobold in front of it!
Reep stands awkwardly, holding his busted boom stick, clearly ill at ease with the whole idea, but ready to aid, if he can.
Jeji rushes forward to stand next to Drahlneep and stabs at the net launching creature. The lingering fear is enough to send her spear wide of its mark and its likely the creature didn't even register the threat. Still, she gave it another target and might even serve to distract the creature slightly.
Drahlneep stabs at the metal menace, swearing heavily in the process.
Sa'rah'then'al hisses and tries out his new whip on the evil intruder.
Drahlneep and Sarahthenal both manage to strike the creature, but their feeble weapons do little damage to the metal skin of the construct. The hazy army of tiny things swarm over the deep scratch caused by the spear and quickly begin mending it.
The creature retaliates with yet another net fired point blank at Drahlneep and he is entangled again.
"I will smash you into tiny pieces!" Drahlneep snarls. Rather than fight the netting, he presses his attack.
Jeji slides a few feet away from Drahlneep and begins to circle around their foe. Perhaps if we can surround it, we can all strike at it together she thinks to herself.