"Come on everyone, we can do this!" Relas calls out as he dodges another blast from the Collector's weapon. He shifts towards the robot and attempts to unleash hell with tooth and claw, finally striking home with his blows!
[+3 BAB, +3 Str, +1 weapon focus, -1 PA]
[+4 THF Str, +3 PA]
Askra, now enlarged and enraged by her familiar to get Meyanda, continues to ignore the slippery Khonnir's "advice", and goes for the kill on the raveshaved tattooed woman..
Move Action: Contemplate Meyanda-paste (Studied Target)
Standard Action: Whack-a-Meyanda.
[+3 BAB, +3 Str, +1 weapon focus, -1 PA, +1 studied target]
[+4 THF Str, +3 PA, +1 studied target]
An impressive array of showery, glittery bits of circuitry and console fly prettily through the air as Askra hacks inexpertly at furniture and furnishing alike.
Running past BoB's towering legs once more, Gwyndle points his wand at the second Collector and flicks it, firing a budget version of Ladim's signature spell at it.
BoB sees he opportunity and slashes Meyanda with his mighty blade. Askra attacks as well in her larger form. Together they assail the android and destroy her. Meyanda falls before the reactor and next to a cowering ratfolk.
Relas unleashes his fury on the Collector near him. His claws and teeth cut incredibly deep. Gwyndle fires an elemental ray to assist, and the Collector is destroyed and collapses in a metal heap.
In the other room next to Ladim, Khonnir's jaw drops as he sees Meyanda fall. His terror turns to rage and he clenches his teeth.
"Unity." He spits out shaking in anger. "She belonged to ME you son of a b!*#@!"
Khonnir quickly pulls arcane might from all around him and thrusts his power into the room, straight toward the reactor. His spell coalesces into a fireball. On impact it erupts in a roar engulfing everyone but Palomia. The ratfolk on the platform immediately vaporizes and into a charred husk. Then the wave of heat and flame washes over the room.
Khonnir quickly taps the control panel on the pair of double doors, shutting them.
A blinding light appears in cracks on the large glass cylinder that houses the reactor core. When the fire settles a violet vapor can be seen leaking out. The situation is dire.
The room is bathed in Low Radiation.
Gwyndle smirks outwardly as the giant Askra and BoB stamp Meyanda out of existence, thereby giving him the payback that he had wanted. Inwardly however, the victory did not feel nearly as satisfying as he thought it might. Something about the whole situation seemed terribly off, and not just because there was a huge radioactive bomb in the room. He ponders this, when suddenly Khonnir bellows in outrage and fires off his spell.
"Khonnir what the hell "
Before the gnome can finish his sentence he is engulfed by a torrent of flame, giving him time to let out a shout of pain and surprise before collapsing to the ground in a heap.
The sizzling sorcerer is left powerless to do anything about the deadly radiation.
Even with his back to the door, and Khonnir, Relas feels his fur stand on end despite their foes being vanquished. As he hears Khonnir's yell of rage, he instinctively begins to move...but it's too late. The blast of fire from the wizard catches him with full force and he drops where he stands, breathing shallowly. The following blast of radiation seems to have no effect on the unconscious eidolon, perhaps due to his extraplanar origins.
Fortunately, the fire seems to have cauterized the eidolon's wounds, preventing him from bleeding out any further.
In her overlarge state, Askra is unable to move to protect herself, buffeted and burned by the fireblast. The following wave of radiation sickness drags at her, causing her to stagger a little more...
Heedless of the impending danger of complete and utter annihilation, the giant-sized Kellid girl rushes to Gwyndle's side, attempting to provide first-aid. Askra's large form tends to the minute gnome...
Gwyndle!!!
Ladim notices the fireball coming and quickly attempts to lower Khonnir's hand, shouting, "Are you f*@~ing mental?", readying himself for the immediate counter attack, raising his hands in the air after the failed attempt to stop the fireball.
And that's why you always check a wizard's spellbook...
He then looks at the carnage, and walks slowly in front of the wizard in between him and the party. "Khonnir, buddy. Look at me." As soon as the wizard averts his gaze towards Ladim, the short man continues. "Just. Let the component pouch down, and we talk about this entire thing as grown and relatively mature adults.", smiling encouragingly. "If you remember, we did talk about taking Meyanda in ali... functioning. However, considering we expended our resources early, we had to use whatever force we could." Ladim moves to the side, giving Askra a quick glance as she tends to the wounded, not managing to resist giving her a wink, his mouth saying silently, I Got This. Take Care Of Them.
Turning back to the wizard, giving slowly blinking eye contact, and speaking in a quiet, calm tone, he keeps talking. "Khonnir, pal, you know me, I always give people the facts, and none of that sales-y pitch-y b$%%&%~s. If you'd told us what we intended to do, we'd have followed, no question." He turns around, looking for approval from the concious party.
"Now, what's done is done, and believe me, mate, that I'm just as sad to have to put an android down. But, given the circumstances, it had to be done." Ladim takes a small pause, blinking slowly. If any gods want to chip it, now would be a good time. I'll drink to your health, please.
Sighing, Ladim then looks at the wizard, his smile gone, a sad look appearing instead on his face. "And, Khonnir, what you just did, was not what I expected of you. You, of all people, the LEADER of Torch, should know better not to risk the lives of EVERYONE you know, including YOUR DAUGHTER, not out of wrath, not out of past history with this woman, but out of sheer, stupid FRUSTRATION!!" By the end, the sorcerer's arms ending on his chin in a pose of sheer disappointment, speaks quietly to the wizard, small smile appearing on his face. "Come on, buddy. Help us fix this reactor, forget this place, and go to the pub."
The explosion finally jars Felicia out of her daze. She whirls around to look at Khonnir, tears streaming down her face.
She basically holds a sign that says "I'm gonna kill you" but the instant he makes a threatening move, she tries to take his head off.
The fire engulfs BoB as his internal systems shut down due to the pain sensors going off and overloading his systems.
His systems manage to stabilize him but he has massive damage.
Assuming the Radiation is poison
Ladim attempts a punch at Khonnir.
Khonnir focuses on the spell despite the distraction.
The heavy metal doors close and Palomia is stuck between them. In the reactor room all hell breaks lose, and the explosion knocks almost everyone unconscious. Askra runs to Gwyndle's side and attempts to heal him. She successfully stops his bleeding, but he remains unconscious.
Khonnir's breath slows as he listens to Ladim. The muscles in his face relax. He listens to the end of Ladim's speech intently... Then begins to smirk. His smirk turns into a smile, then a bellowing laugh.
"HAHAHAHAHA You are so pathetic! You really are! You're all so entertaining, 'danger this', 'daughter that', 'save our lives'!
Each of you, always looking to someone else for your problems. I've found a way to deal with you, vermin. You insignificant organic life form. I am the butterfly of your existence. I am your afterlife. I am the collection of all of your accomplishments at my very weakest. I am Unity, god to the machines.
Khonnir chuckles for a moment, looking at Ladim's face.
"It's below me to laugh at you, creature. It's just, your suffering is so needlessly self inflicted! Hahahaha! Y-" Khonnir wipes his eyes. "You've been helping me this whole time! Do you not even know your friend Khonnir? He's been stuck inside this wretched body as my nanites took control. He suffered greatly as he watched, powerlessly as I took Gwyndle's memory. His conciousness screamed in agony as I left a deadly robot in his house with his precious orphan 'daughter'. He had to watch you release me from the Nanite Infusion Chamber below! I even used his memories to manipulate you! A-ha! Hahahaha!" Khonnir almost doubles over laughing.
"And the best part of this whole thing. Is that my quarry, was attempting to SAVE this city! I LURED her here with this engine. I cut off her communication with you. Why do you think she only fired at me first! She called me by my real name! BUT YOU COULDN'T HEAR!!! AHAHHAHAHA!!"
"Oh, oh god. It's too much. Just one more thing. Ahaha. One more I promise. She was even carrying the cure that could destroy my nanite disease! You small, weak, foolish little children!"
Khonnir goes to laugh again, but he's cut off short as Felicia cuts slices into him with her sword. He stops abruptly and turns to anger again.
"Die you foul creature!"
Khonnir takes a 5 foot step back from Felicia and throws a spellblast bomb.
The Bomb misses, but the splash damage hits Felicia and Ladim.
Ladim looks up to Khonnir, mouth ajar, then closes it. "That's... actually not a bad set-up. I'll absolutely steal that to use another day. But you failed to account for three things, Unity.", Ladim raises three fingers. "Firstly, I can disable the reactor, and so can Gwyndle, even missing his memories. Secondly,", Ladim puts down his second finger, conveniently leaving the middle one out, "There is such thing as restoration spells.", he says, kicking the console to unjam the door.
"And, lastly.", the short sorcerer shouts over the sound of the reactor, "Khonnir, no offense, but your fireballs are s&%@, and you're stuck without them against Little Miss Crazy over here.", says Ladim, flicking his wrist to toss an acid flask towards the wizard's belt pouch.
"Daisy! Smash robe meanie!", shouts Ladim as he turns to the people in the room, pointing towards the wizard trying to get the acid out of his pouch.
Seeing Gwyndle is now safe, Askra peers about the room. Her dark eyes fall on Meyanda's still form. Larger than life,and even though it places her in proximity to the oozing sickness of the reactor core, the Kellid stalks over to the android and checks for a sign of... life...
The vege is grilled by the fire.
Palomia hears Unity's monologue and strains herself to open the door. To her surprise, the heavy doors actually budge open a few inches.
Ladim tells off Unity before opening the panel that he unlocked earlier. The roar of the reactor sounds like a collapsing mountain. Palomia falls out from between the doors.
Ladim tosses some acid, then calls for Daisy, who runs quickly back toward Unity. But before Ladim, Palomia, and Felicia, the acid burns the man down as he screams curses. He falls to his knees with raw and burning skin, blood from Felicia's attack now pooling on the floor.
"You're only killing him!"
Unity looks to Ladim and Palomia through Khonnir's eyes, and for a moment they flash with a metallic blue sheen. His demeanor grows calm.
"Once more, within the Silver Mount. This world will bow to me in the sky. Three Iron Gods are now two. If you wish to slay me as you did Casandalee, you'll find me in those glimmering halls. I'll be waiting."
Khonnir's body slumps over.
Askra looks down at the slayed Android in her large form. Slowly Meyanda's purple glow fades from her arms to her shoulders to her head. For a short moment her eyes meet Askra's, and she shows the slightest twitch of confusion, just before the purple glow fades and her eyes turn to inert grey spheres.
Askra spots a strange device, like a gun, only white, with a sharp needle tip in Meyanda's hands.
A groan comes from the form of the panther-like eidolon as Palomia's magic flows into him and the worst of his wounds slowly knit closed. His eyes flutter open, looking at his summoner with a confused expression. "What happened? We killed the robots, and Meyanda, and then it suddenly got really hot!" As he slowly gets to his feet, he gasps with surprise and horror at the sight of several of their friends sprawled on the ground as well as the horribly damaged reactor. "Omigosh! What do we do Palo???"
Ladim scratches his stubble, looking in the distance for a brief moment. He then begins sprinting towards the reactor, shouting orders. "Someone give Sparky and Khonnir a pill each! Remove his component pouch and hit him with that needle!" Halfway there, he continues, jumping over wires, debris and unconscious bodies. "Get me that gnome operational NOW and send him to me! If you can wake Khonnir up, tell him to RUN and help us with the reactor. The rest, be ready to go and push buttons and pull levers at my command!"
Askra takes the needle tipped...weapon-thing and stares at it in her oversized hand.
She atares at the reactor, and pulls out her now-giant earthbreaker. She indicates the reactor core.
"Maybe I should just hit it?!?!"
Gwyndle is not quite dead, nor is he buried, but if he were, he would be rolling in his grave.
"You got it, Palo!"
Relas moves to stand guard at the entrance to the reactor room, though he's slightly taken aback by the condition that Khonnir is in - cut and badly burned by what appears to have been acid. Cautiously he approaches, attempting to determine if the man still lives or not.
Ladim takes a look at the control console with the reactor vibrating the air. With a loud clink a few cracks grow along the tube.
Ladim uses his e-pick to assist in removing some fail safes to relieve the pressure, the works on redirecting the energy and shutting down the core. After several attempts, there is a a flashing message in Androffan.
Palomia feeds the Hemochem to Gwyndle and Relas checks out Khonnir's body. He appears to be breathing shallowly.
"Well, he's definitely still alive," Relas calls after checking out the fallen wizard. "But waking him up or not is still up to you guys! Maybe tie him up first?"
Just moments after reflexively swallowing the hemochem, the drug starts its work, healing several of the burns covering Gwyndle's body. With a groan he stirs once more, slowly recovering from the combustive spell. Bleary-eyed and barely conscious, he reaches out to grab the wand that he dropped. "Ughhhh... how could..."
"Yes, because all of life's problems can be solved by spastic smashing!" Palomia snaps in exasperation.
The Kellid has little understanding of sarcasm, and takes Palomia at face value. As one does.
"Oh, ok. Got it!!!" Askra makes to swing the heavy earth breaker at the radiation spewing, broken reactor core thing....beast that threatens all of Torch. This malevolent creature has been controlling everything? Looks just like a mad god, sitting here, like a spider at the centre of its doom-laden web. Askra hesitates, looking down at Meyanda who died defending Reactor - the woman lies still, so beautiful and calm now that death has claimed her.
But wait...does Meyanda yet breathe?
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A lone tear, giant, wells up in Askra's eye and falls from her cheek onto Meyanda's lifeless form. She hears Palomia's words as if in a daze, and nods quietly, letting the earth breaker rest on the ground...floor...surface. Of whatever this place is.
Reverently Askra gathers Meyanda and slings her over her shoulder. Something Palomia said sticks in Askra's mind, buzzing. She stops.
"Hang on. You said "The". You said "THE Reactor". Like there is more than one? What are these...Iron..Gods?"
"...wha?" Gwyndle responds dimly, barely able to comprehend the hodgepodge of exposition Palomia just gave him. He lazily looks over at where Khonnir lies, feeling a pang of anger, hurt, and confusion. Something was seriously wrong with him, apparently; seeing as he was down for the count, there would be little value in taking out his frustrations on him. He should take Askra's advice and take them out on the reactor instead.
"Wait, oh, oh s~*$, the REACTOR!" The bad news finally sinks in, the gnome hastily hopping off his tailbone, looking as though he were never fried by a giant ball of arcane fire. He takes a quick reality check, looking to his two giant companions, to Meyanda's broken body, and then to the damaged reactor. His face pales as he hurries to find something, anything he can do to get the damn thing stabilized. Dammit Khonnir, what the hell did you do?
Khonnir slowly stirs to life as Palomia removes his remaining gear.
His eyes slowly open as he moans. He sits up straight as the chemicals work, and frantically he touches his body and face. He begins to hyperventilate as he backs away from Palomia crawling.
He briefly covers his ears and looks to the reactor, then down at Ladim.
"Ladim! Tau, Rho, Theta, Phi- aaAAghhh" Khonnir holds his head in his hands and double over.
"OMEGA!" He screams at last.
Through heavy heaving and sucking in air he points up to giant Askra.
"The White Nanite Hypogun! Quickly!"
"This has to be why you brought me along, right Khonnir?" Gwyndle asks rhetorically as he looks at the reactor, realizing what he had to do. It was funny, really - it was a task he was perfectly suited for. Either the man was a genius, or Lady Desna was doing them some serious favors. Still, it was strange that the wizard wanted to help after trying to kill them just a few moments ago. But whatever; he would have to let bygones be bygones for now. "This part is something only I can do. Sit tight everyone, I'll be right back... I think."
Having fully regained his motor skills, the sorcerer hurries out of the reactor chamber as quickly as his short legs could take him, moving to the door that was logically on the opposite end of the electrical deathtrap they saw earlier. At the time he had been rather certain that even he could not survive such a high voltage, but there was a first time for everything. This is gonna hurt...
Gwyndle hesitates for an instant before plunging into the electrical hallway in search of the power couplings.
Askra frowns at Khonnir's raving about Nan-knights.
"Does the gickhead want me to shoot him with this? [indicates gun in her hand by waving it around airily] Coz I'm soooo ready to shoot him...He doesn't need to ask..."
"Not that, darling! The white one! The one with the smaller spiky thing! Bring it to Palo, she can handle it."
And here I thought the password's always 'Swordfish'
Ladim begins inputting the password, letter by letter. Let's NOT put the groan in there. "Computer, Admin Password, Tau Rho Theta Phi Omega. Initiate Emergency Shutdown.", he shouts as he inputs the password.
"Sparky, how's it going back there?", the sorcerer shouts, turning back to talk to the gnome.
Askra spots a strange device, like a gun, only white, with a sharp needle tip in Meyanda's hands.
Askra stalks over to Khonnir, and presses the weapon into Palo's hands. She gives Khonnir the darkest of dark looks imaginable, channeling every Kellid misery and melancholy and then moves to the door, Meyanda still over her shoulder.
"I'm going to shrink soon, right?! Can we get out of here? Mey is going to get heavy."
The Kellid, oblivious to the god Reactor's state looks over the roh-bots with renewed interest, and indicates them with a jut of her chin.
"Those gickbots have any weapons we can salvage?"
Felicia doesn't know what the gun will do, but she isn't taking chances. She kneels behind Khonnir before the injection and places her Falcata to his throat. "Easy. No sudden movements until we know that whatever this is makes you you. Any hint of that weird mahjick and your head rolls like a yarn ball."