Jeji drew out her shortsword and swung at the monstrosity in front of her.
Kricker's wounds are telling and the iron priest's sword a bit too slow as the lobotomite's robot arm deflects the greatsword. Jeji switches to her sidearm and stabs the badly burned cyborg. Though it doesn't appear to feel the pain, its charred form seems about to fail.
Drahlneep double-taps into the nearest monstrosity, lowering his aim from the face to the throat, hoping to just burn a hole through the thing's neck and take it's head clean off.
Perrik calls on healing power for Kricker, trying to keep the other kobold in the fight.
Drahlneep aims high again firing the laser pistol over Whiskifiss' head and blasting through neck and spine. The metal-jawed lobotomite topples over dead. A moment later, The ratfolk swarm the drill-armed monster and take it down. Only the badly burned lobotomite remains and swings its laser torch at Jeji only to have the device fail and the malfunctioning warrior topples over.
The battle is won!
By Gorum's strong right hand! Now that was a fight! Well done furred friends! And thank you Perrik for the magical assistance. Kricker retrieves his Musket and cleans it.
The tall ratfolk female with hair tied like ropes on either side of her rodent face, steps forward to greet the kobolds. "Thank you. I am Redtooth, the leader of this gang. We were once much more powerful, but Hellion lured away many of our band with false promises. My brother, Whiskifiss, has told me that you seek to destroy the Smilers. Perhaps you seek to end Hellion's reign over Scrapwall as well. If so, you have our support."
Drahlneep cluthes at the drill wound, panting. "What are those things?" he asks in Draconic, kicking the one that had a hold of him previously. He sits heavily down on top of it, using it's lifeless corpse as a chair to catch his breath. "Kricker? Does your god have any way to heal this? It...it is taking a lot out of me."
Perrik looks around for the spy BOT. "I am Perrik, and these are Kricker, Jeji, and Drahlneep. We must get under cover before we talk more."
If the SpyBOT is still around it is well hidden. Redtooth bows and waves the kobolds to follow. "Yes, let us return to our warren where we can rest and take care of the wounded."
The nightsun or Moon, as the human's call it, has cleared the outer wall of the great scrap heap and casts a silver pall over the small folk as they scavenge the broken guns and bucklers off the Smilers. There is nothing else of particular value. Moving toward the wall, the group passes the bloody corpse of the Smiler that fled from the screaming bolt.
Once Redtooth reaches the towering wall of trash, she pokes at some random bits and then pulls open a well concealed door. The ratfolk lead through a kobold-sized passage into a large room where dire rats peer out from the metal sheets and rusted devices. Redtooth once again conducts some secret business at one of the walls and another secret passage is revealed into a more comfortable chamber with low tables and mounds of scavenged cloth and fibers woven into a nest-like seats.
I can heal the damage, but it will be tomorrow before I can help with the blood loss from the drill. I expect that your body will recover some of that on your own if you get some rest in. Red tooth if any of your folk are wounded have them stand close and Gorum shall heal us all.
"Thanks, it still hurts, but that is better. You think these guys know our language?" Drahlneep remains suspicious of everyone, and wants to maintain an edge anyway he can. "Bet they'd make good spies though."
The ratfolk don't appear to understand the ancient and powerful Draconic language. The wounded gather around to be healed by Kricker's healing aura and then gratefully share a meal of scavenged food tubes with the kobolds. Afterwards, Redtooth addresses her allies. "You are welcome to stay here in the Warren as long as you require. But tell me, what do you know of the Hellion and how do you plan to defeat him?"
Perrik pauses before replying. "There is too much about it we do not know for us to have a proper plan. But it will come after us for slaying its minion, Meyanda, and defeating its plans in Torch. So we will first learn what we can while we kill its other minions, and then we will it."
"Ask if they have any more batteries, or know where we can get them." Drahlneep says while checking the available energy for his gear. It has become one of his top priorities since acquiring the battery-hungry ancient weapon. "Yeah, without worshippers, what is a god? Dead and forgotten. Kill Hellion's worshippers, take Hellion's power for our own. Sounds like a plan to me."
The ratfolk ignore Drahlneep's jabbering and Redtooth looks approvingly at Perrik. "I do not know that Hellion knows that you killed Meyanda unless you have spoken openly of it. I have watched Hellion's power grow and thought much about how to defeat him. We only needed an ally that could challenge him."
"Whiskifiss may have served the Thralls of Hellion, but with his return to the Raiders has supplied us with good intelligence. Meyanda was searching for a generator to send more power to Hellion. Somehow the TEK sent the power to a Receiver here at Scrapwall. Hellion may find other generators. I have a plan to take out the Receiver if you are interested. It would be a heavy blow to our enemy."
That sounds interesting. It sounds like something we would be willing to help with. We are a little concerned with running out of energy ourselves. My friend's pistol is going through batteries at a rather rapid pace.
Whiskifiss looks abash at the reminder that he once served Hellion and then quite frightened at the thought of the Receiver. "B-but the big C-C-CAT! Hellion throws the dead out there to attract a flying monster cat with a human face! It is horrible! Tk-Tk!"
Redtooth looks at Whiskifiss with concern. "So you have said, brother. I am sure these powerful warriors can handle it. And we can give them batteries and explosives to succeed where we might not."
"Perhaps we should raid the Smilers at some point as well. They may have more weapons and we would deny Hellion more troops."
"If these Smilers are humans too, then let's kill them first and take their stuff. We need more stuff."
"Tell me about this flying cat, Whiskifiss. I know many things, and I may know its weaknesses."
Perrik has heard tales of a great cat with a man's head and bat wings called a manticore. They are supposedly very fierce, but of limited intelligence: greater than an animal, but less than the average human.
"The monster cat is stupid, so if we have to kill it after we kill the Smilers we will trick it. Catch it in an ambush."
Lets take out the Smilers first, it sounds like they may have useful weapons for us.
Redtooth nods and promises assistance to help you defeat the common enemy. The kobolds are given a chamber to rest in and the next night they make preparations. Redtooth gives Drahlneep three batteries for his laser pistol.
Kricker refreshes his spells, changing out a few of them.
.
Drahlneep rubs the still raw and sore drill wound and watches the sun go down behind walls of junk. "Deny them their weapons," He mutters to himself, "And take them for our own. Hit them and run into the caves of junk. Hit and run...don't be pinned down."
He checks his gear, keeping his last fully charged battery close at hand then returns to the others. "Let's take our enemies' stuff. Kill some of 'em. What do we know about where they are and how many they have?"
Redtooth nods and promises assistance to help you defeat the common enemy. The kobolds are given a chamber to rest in and the next night they make preparations. Redtooth gives Drahlneep three batteries for his laser pistol.
Drahlneep feels better, but still a tad off from his recent blood loss. After commenting on how expensive batteries are, Redtooth mentions that there is a hermit not far from the Smiler hideout who is pretty good at repairing TEK. Perhaps she could fix the pistol if she is still around.
"Fix it? There are sorcerers who know about TEK magic?"
"Redtooth, where are the rest of the Smilers?"
Redtooth has a spare chain shirt that she is happy to give to the Kricker when he asks about bartering for armor. She directs you to go north, but stay to the west passage for the Lords of Rust are to the east.
"Ask them if there is a good position to fall back to after we raid. I do not want to lead any TEK spy creatures back to either our allies or our own headquarters. We need to scout our foes, see if we can pick off some of them, maybe lead some into ambush." Drahlneep rubs the drill wound without realizing it. "We keep getting pinned down in Scrapwall. That is fine for me when I'm dedicated to a fight, but bad for our tribe." We are a tribe now at last, aren't we? He smiled.
Once Drahlneep's message is relayed, Redtooth responds. "The Smiler's hideout is deep in their territory. The only unclaimed territory near there is by the Hermit. Whiskifiss tells me that you have taken the Perch from Birdfood in Steel Hawks' territory. Perhaps you can ask them to patrol for Hellion's spies."
The kobolds move out into the night to take advantage of the darkness before the moon rises. According to Redtooth, it is about two miles to reach the north end of Scrapwall where the Smiler hideout is located.
The kobold warband makes its way to the edge of Redtooth's territory when Kricker notes a sound up ahead. He creeps up to find a strange creature. It is insect-like, but walks on four legs as an animal. It is perhaps as high as a kobold at the shoulder and twice as long. It has long feathery antennae and seems to be eating some rusty metal.
Drahlneep pulls the pistol and unlimbers his shield as Kricker investigates.
Weird, let try not to anger it though, no need to get into a fight until we meet our quarry.
Drahlneep grins. "If we do need to fall back, maybe we can lead them to this creature?"
Kricker takes the lead again and the kobolds attempt to quietly move around the rust monster. Then Kricker notices one of the beetle-like spy bots perched about ten feet up the side of the wall of trash, watching them.
These bugs are starting to get on my nerves, but I don't think there is anything we can do about them now...