Jeji continues to try and distract the machine from her brethren as she attempts to slip around behind it.
Drahlneep's adrenaline rush ends abruptly and he becomes shaky and weak barely able to lift the end of his spear to threaten the robot. Jeji continues to find herself over her head in close combat. She tries to circle around and instead is painfully grabbed by a metal claw!
Reep, seeing his friends taken, gulps, enchants his bullet and fires!
for damage!
Jeji kicks and squirms in effort to free herself from the ensnaring claw.
sa'rah'then'al blinks as the thing falls but doesn't attempt to get up. He hisses loudly and jumps in and attempts to bite it.
"Let her go!" Drahlneep snarls at the machine. Despite his vicious words, he can not seem to bring the spear point home.
Reep's bullet lodges in the hard armor of the robot doing little damage. It is clear to all that other than Drahlneep's adrenaline powered assault, only Jeji's bomb seems to have had any real effect. Jeji wriggles around in the steel grasp, but can't get loose. The robot tries to rise from the ground, but its rotor remains stuck and it's unable to drag Jeji into the air with it.
Reep peers at it, then focuses on Jeji, wiggling his fingers.
Jeji continues to struggle and struggle against the creature's claw trying to free herself from it's clutches.
Too exhausted to continue his stream of curses, Drahlneep merely grunts weekly as he tries to finish the beast off.
Drahlneep continues panting and huffing thoroughly spent. By Reep's command, Jeji wiggles even harder, but can't quite break free. Sarahthenal tries to help by pulling on her tail and with a final twist, Jeji breaks free!
The machine rises in the air again and fires at the kobold that keeps sort of threatening it with a pointed stick. Drahlneep is hit by a bludgeoning blast of low sound that rattles his fangs and clouds his vision.
His vision swirling and his limbs numb, Drahlneep desperately stabs at the beast he is facing.
Reep clutches his rifle and grits his teeth. This thing needs to die, now. He steps to where he can avoid anyone and cast burning hands on the thing! damage, Reflex DC 14 half!
Jeji slowly moves back away from the creature and draws a bomb out of her pack. She screams "fall back away from it!"
Drahlneep is swaying on his clawed feet and can barely stand let alone mount an effective attack. At Jeji's warning, the battered berserker steps away with the alchemist. Sarahthenal moves back as well giving Reep the opening he needs to send a wave of flames over the thing. One of the rotors sparks and the construct loses a bit of altitude before it steadies and sends a burst of ultra low frequency energy at the new threat.
Drahlneep withdraws to the best of his beaten, tired ability. He knows full well what Jeji is planning and wants to be nowhere near the creature.
Reep falls back, reloading.
Once the tribe is clear, Jeji hurls her bomb at the robot and quickly draws another one as she slowly backs up farther away.
The warband keeps edging back from the robot allowing Jeji to continue chucking bombs at it. Another hit and black smoke starts pouring out of the machine. It wobbles in the air as it fires again, but the rattling blast is way off and thuds into a wall.
Drahlneep pants with exhaustion and merely waits to dodge out of the way in case the creature should target him.
Jeji launches another bomb at their foe and quickly draws another out of her pack.
Another bomb flies through the air and smashes directly into the smoking robot. It is a direct hit and following the deafening explosion, the machine swerves into one of the beds which rolls across the floor crashing into a wall. Black smoke continues to pour out of the machine, but the rotors fall silent and the thing moves no more.
A moan is heard from the bed-sized cabinet to the east and you see the silhouette of a human hand against the frosted side panel of the device.
Jeji slips her bomb back into her pack and moves to pick up her spear. She then heads over to check on Drahlneep before moving to the cabinet to investigate. She holds her spear tightly as she pokes around the cabinet. So far almost everything they had encountered had tried to kill them so she was a bit on edge, and then there was the the whole revenge against the humans to consider, but if whatever was inside the cabinet had fallen victim to the robots of the metal caves, then she wanted to at least speak to it, if possible.
"I'm fine. Just...need...rest." Drahlneep wheezes. He almost moves to the beds, then thinks better of it and simply slumps to a sitting position against the wall.
Jeji is certainly justified in being cautious as even the robots that are supposed to be helpful servants have been highly dangerous. This device certainly doesn't appear to be dangerous or actively hurting the human inside, but he does seem to want out. A muffled voice speaking the common human tongue is heard, "Please. Let me out."
Drahlneep slumps down and notices what appears to be a pile of discarded human gear under a bed. The clothes have been ripped to rags, but there is a backpack with food and blanket, a torch that burns without heat, a fine human dagger, an amulet, some coins, 5 vials, 3 scrolls, and a wand.
"It speaks!" Reep positively bounces over to the human. He prods the hand with his gun. "Can it do any other tricks? Can it sing?" He asks in Draconic.
She chuckled at Reep's antics. He certainly was entertaining. Jeji looked in Sa'rah'then'al's direction for approval before trying to open the cabinet. She looks over the cabinet for a handle or switch or some way to open it.
Jeji presses a button and the panel slides up revealing a naked human on the metal table within. He has been shorn of all his hideous hair and lies trembling all pale and pink and soft marked by terrible scars especially around his bulbous unhorned head. He turns his head to you and you see his eyes darting and encircled by black rings. His mouth works, but says nothing.
"Maybe it speaks Ape-tongue?" Reep leans over and in exagerrated words, says in Common. "WHY ARE YOU IN BOX, HUMAN?"
The man keeps shaking uncontrollably. "R-r-robots. T-t-terrible robots."
Reep tilts his head, quizzically. "ROBOTS PUT YOU IN BOX? OR ROBOTS AM IN BOX?"
The man winces at the yelling and trembling hands go to hold his scarred head. "Arrgh," he moans. "They put me in here."
"He looks how I feel, heh. Let's see what he knows," Drahlneep mutters in Draconic with his eyes half-closed. Before we dispose of him.
Reep lowers his voice. "Why did robots put you in there? Is this place for food for robots? Are you good for eating?"
"I think they were experimenting on me. My b-b-brain. They put something in me. It's in my brain." The human's face twists in pain and his hands press against his scalp reopening some of the wounds. He takes a deep breath looking dazed.
"Robots d-don't eat, b-b-but the little green men. I remember little green men. Where did th-the others go?"
"What others? Were you working with the purple-haired woman?" Drahlneep asks in Draconic. See if he understands our language...
The man replies in his native tongue: "P-P-Purple hair? No, Gerrol and the others... wait, what was that you said?" His eyes seem to focus on his rescuers for the first time. "K-kobolds?! What are you doing here?"
Not sure what the human said, but feeling confident he understood him, Drahlneep tests the human.
Jeji peers up at the human intently. "What is your name human?" she asks in the common tongue.
The human has no hair, but does have a knotted tattoo on his left arm. "My name is Khonnir Baine. Wait, you speak Androffan?"
"This human is clearly going to be full of useful information." Drahlneep says in Draconic. Addressing the human in Androffan, "I picked it up while learning about Numeria and tracking a purple haired woman. Have you seen her?" He repeats his question in Draconic for the benefit of the rest of the tribe.
He knows many languages. This makes it difficult for us to plan in his presence.
"N-No. I don't know anyone with p-p-purple hair. Is she with you?" He answers in Human with a glance at Reep's violet scales. Suddenly, the man's trembling becomes worse, his eyes roll back into his head and then his whole body starts jerking.
Reep leans forward and stares at the human's head. "We can remove anything in your brain, no problem!" Reep shoulders his rifle and aims at the human's skull..
The man doesn't respond to Reep's threat of assistance. He suddenly stops shaking and lies very still panting shallowly.
"This is the human that the other human was looking for. The one we met while we were harbored by the Hidden Ones. We should take him back and ransom him back. Perhaps we could get more weapons, or learn more about those that inhabit these metal caves." Jeji looks at the human with disgust, but tries to contain her emotions.
Sarahthenal has been looking over the things discovered by Drahlneep () identifying a scroll of unseen servant and a wand of magic missile. He pats the bruised and weary Drahlneep's shoulder and released a eerie glow that helps revive him.
Although he feels much better, Drahlneep remains sitting for the moment, basking in the warm feeling of a clear head and healed lacerations. "Then he is doubly-valuable. When he recovers, we need to learn what he knows. Then we can get him to someone who would pay or trade with us."
Jeji inspects the man looking over his injuries trying to figure out if he's in mortal danger or if he can survive the next 24 hours.
"Reep, can you figure out if these items are magical and what these scrolls do?" Jeji passes one cure light wounds potion to Drahlneep and one to Reep and slips the antitoxin and acid into her own pack.
The man seems to have suffered extensive and on-going harm to his brain and nervous system based on his dazed appearance and tremors. He is also at death's door. The exertion of speaking to you nearly took him over the threshold, but Jeji acts quickly to stabilize him.