Issuma shakes her head. "I think that it may be better to have one set of eyes on the town while you are in the mines. If something unexpected happens, I can try and warn you. Besides, you are far less noticeable and more experienced in that environment. I would only hinder you. I wish you luck. I will wait here."
With Issuma deciding to remain as your eyes on the outside, Jeji has no difficulty guiding you around the town to the mine entrance. The mechanical men make plenty of noise to announce their presence and are easy for the sneaky kobolds to avoid.
The entrance to the mine is quite large and shored up well enough in the kobold's opinion. There are also tell-tale bits of the strange white metal that the Ancients used scattered into the rock identifying this place as a site of potential Ancient TEK. The entryway is about 12 feet wide and 25 feet long. On the Western wall, a wooden board covered with pegs has been mounted to the wall, and numerous small metal medallions hang on chains from them, gleaming faintly in the light. The Eastern side of the chamber is dominated by racks and racks of mining equipment. The room is bisected by a set of iron rails, which leads from the outside into an opening in the Northern wall.
Does the mining equipment include lanterns? If so let’s see if we can sabotage the, so they only last a little while. That should give us an advantage when they start failing.
Kricker finds that the equipment racks contain a handful of picks, axes, and shovels, as well as a couple of lanterns, some oil, a few hundred feet of rope. Several items appear to be put up poorly and a broken lantern and two shovels are just tossed on the floor near the rack. About two-thirds of the pegs on the board have a small cheap metal medallion hanging on it in order of the number written on it.
Jeji glanced at the equipment rack and shrugged.
"The oil and rope we can use" Jeji said as she started gathering the oil. "Drahlneep, can you carry that much rope? We may need it."
With that done she turned and headed deeper into the mine.
"Stay at least 15 feet behind me, in case of traps or collapse."
Drahlneep gathers up rope and glances at the exit. "Let's hurry to make sure things are safe here for our ambush. I will keep an eye on our rear."
Lead on!
Kricker has his grapnel gun out and ready in case of collapses.
Jeji leads the way keeping a trained eye out for traps or loose areas. The tunnel opens shortly into a large stope. The floor of this large room is a tangled web of rails, as tracks from four different tunnels converge. In the center of the room, the floor of the cavern seems warped and twisted, and the rails appear to sink into the solid rock as though it were mud, only to reemerge again on the other side. Several mine carts are crammed into one corner of the room, while two more lie toppled beside the warped and sunken tracks in the middle of the room.
Perrik follows, checking behind the party often. "Drahlneep, can you look for tracks?"
In the stope, the androkobold looks with interest at the way the tracks have sunk into the rock, trying to remember if he has heard of anything like that happening before. "That is a strange thing."
As Perrik approached the strange area which he notes looks melted without heat, likely some sort of magical rock shaping or softening effect, he hears a gasp from behind one of the turned-over mine carts. Quickly inspecting, he finds a kobold half-sunken into the rock.
Her eyes bulge and dart wildly as she croaks in Draconic, a trace of blood flowing from her jaws. "The Monsters. The Monsters are INSIDE ME!" She finishes with a scream.
Kricker looks with pity on her as he back away from the area a bit and keeps his weapon pointed in her general direction.
Tell us more and we may be able to help you!
The kobold writhes in pain. "Aaaaagghhh! The monsters are everywhere. Help me."
The sight of the trapped kobold sickens Drahlneep, but her words make him wince. He starts to lift the pistol, ready to bring her mercy, but he can't seem to do it. After a moment he moves closer and speaks to her in a calm and soft voice.
"I know. I know. They are everywhere. One was inside me for a long time. I understand. It is dark, and frightening. We are right here. Kin. Okay? Please, try and tell us what happened. I promise we will free you, and if the monsters return before you are free, I will...I...I'll make it quick. Okay?"
"Watch for attackers while I examine her."
Moving closer, Drahlneep can see something moving beneath the scales of the unfortunate kobold. "I came back. I came back for the ones that disappeared. The monsters come from the walls. It hurts! ARRGHHHIIIIEEE!"
Jeji's eyes bulged wide in shock. Never before had she heard of such a thing that she could recall. Glad to see the others take control of the situation, she slowly backed away from the sunken kobold, and then again away from the walls as the trapped kobold continued on about the monsters coming from the walls. She drew her arc pistol and clutched it with two clawed hands, constantly aiming the weapon in a new direction.
"Kricker," Drahlneep says, "Do you see that? Can you remove it?" he asks, referring to whatever is beneath the poor woman's scales. "Which others, cousin?" he asks the kobold as calmly as possible. Inside he fears he will need to kill the poor kobold.
Remove it? I don't know what it is, but let me try this. Be ready to smack something!
Kricker moves forward again and switches to his crowbar and then casts Protection from evil on the poor Kobold, hoping to drive out what is possessing her.
It is evident that the affliction is quite physical as Perrik examines the kobold. Kricker's spell does nothing to ease her suffering. Perrik thinks that the creatures devouring the kobold slave from within could be surgically removed, but it would be difficult. Without the procedure, he gives her less than an hour to live. Maybe much less.
"Kricker, do you have a healer's kit? I may be able to cut the things out of her, but I do not have the tools."
The only thing that I have that will cut is the chainsaw! I am not that kind of cleric. But if we have a dagger, I can stand by to heal her wounds when you go in.
Drahlneep considers his old spear, probably the last thing he owned from his old life. "Would my spear tip work?" he asks ready to snap the shaft near the head.
"I have a dagger." Perrik draws the small blade and sets to work. "This will hurt. There is nothing I can do about it."
Drahlneep moves in and holds the trapped woman's claw as Perrik begins his surgery. "Look at me. We will get you through this. You are not alone."
Drahlneep's heirloom spear is spared for now as Perrik 'digs in' so to speak with his dagger. He wields the blade deftly, cutting a small incision to reveal a tiny red form under the flesh. Though the wound is minimal given the situation, the kobold patient falls unconscious. Perrik quickly extracts a monster- a tiny red insectile thing with six limbs and a horned almost reptilian head. It squeals as it is pulled from its warm tasty lair!
"That is...odd. Have any of you seen anything like this before?" The oracle considers his own sources of data.
The creature is a larval Xill. It grows to become a four-armed humanoid like Issuma and is even from the same planet though the Xill are mortal enemies of the Kasatha. They can phase through the earth and paralyze humanoids to lay their eggs within them.
"Issuma will be interested to learn of this--perhaps one of these xill will have a way that he can return to his home. Drahlneep, please kill it in a way that leaves most of it intact. We will need to find the parent and destroy it as well, if we want to rescue more of the slaves here."
"It's a bug," laughs the barbarian. "How exactly do you kill a bug without squashing it?" He looks at the spear again. "I mean, I could just spear it? Maybe drown it in a waterskin?"
"Can't you just cut it in half? That should kill it and you'd have two pieces...somewhat intact." Jeji shrugged, not really convinced by her own idea.
The larval monster looking something like a crayfish with a lizard's head writhes in Perrik's grasp while the kobolds discuss what to do with it. It makes a cricking noise that is eerily echoed from the unconscious kobold's body as another little head appears at the incision with an answering call. More movement is seen under the skin of the kobold victim.
"No..." Drahlneep groans as he backs up and raises the pistol to the trapped kobold's head, but then stops. "Wait, back up, squeeze that thing! Maybe we can draw them out of her?"
Perrik complies and two other little creatures drop from the incision. Kricker quickly casts a healing spell to keep the kobold from expiring at that moment. The three tiny terrors move to take on those that would interrupt their meal!
Perrik:
Kricker: ;
Drahlneep:
foe:
Perrik stabs at one of the larval xill with the dagger he holds!
Too concerned with the little insects burrowing into her own flesh, Jeji threw caution to the wind and hurled a bomb directly at the closest one.
She then retreated back away from the creatures as much as she could.
Kricker holds action to see what the outcome of the bomb is. If any of them still live he whacks one with his crowbar.
jeji gives a panicked yell before tossing a bomb at the miniature menace. Kricker jumps back with crowbar raised and ready to whack. Still holding the kreeking larva, Perrik ends up just outside the blast radius. As does Drahlneep who stands nearby, with gun still raised. The blast burns the unfortunate infested kobold along with the two xill larvae.
"I'm sorry cousin. We did our best." Drahlneep sighs.
in a voice made all the more chilling by Perrik's occasional lack of affect, the oracle adds, "You will be avenged."
The xill larva writhes trying to escape Perrik's squeezing grasp, but the kobold holds tight and jabs it with a dagger until he kills it. Drahlneep has some sorrowful words for the lost kobold and then the warband has a chance to assess their situation. Clearly, something bad has already happened in the mine.
"We need to search here, set up traps, and then go further into the mine. If we have to run from a xill, we can lure it into the traps."
In addition to the adit behind, two passages lead forward and there is a side chamber with more mine carts piled up. This chamber holds nothing more than toppled mine carts and bent rails, but the entry did have scattered tools and supplies.
I think the Xill will provide enough issues for whoever follows us. We should move on quickly in case Momma comes back to see what happened to her babies though. Kricker picks the passage on the right to continue farther on into the mine, for no really good reason.