hux watches as the last of his group mates dashes off. Speaking out loud he says wait did we all just actualy run off into unfamiliar jungle to follow a monkey that was trying to kill us not 10 seconds ago?
Hux turns to jib and decides they had better follow
Katara moves forward a bit more,pulls out his other rifle, and then readies himself to shoot anything that appears hostile.
Katara feels himself longing for the violet blossom that has come into view. He tries his best to resist these urges
tool stays with the group
Dahlia recognize that flower belonging to a vcacinea. The vracinea is one of many plant predators that evolved in the lush jungles of Castrovel. Standing almost 12 feet tall, a typical vracinea weighs 2,000 pounds.
Vracineas are solitary and territorial creatures. When two vracineas see one another, they often charge at each other, quickly becoming locked in a struggle of gnashing teeth until one falls dead or retreats to nurse its wounds.0
It uses it's flower in close. Any living creature within 120 feet of a vracinea that can see its violet blossoms must succeed at a DC 13 Will save each round at the beginning of its turn or be drawn toward the plant. An affected target must use 2 move actions each round to move directly toward the vracinea at its full speed, and it can’t move in such a way that it loses line of sight to the vracinea. If the only path to the vracinea passes through terrain that could harm the target (such as a river of lava or a bed of sharp thorns), the target can attempt an additional saving throw to shake off the effect before moving into the dangerous area. An affected creature within 5 feet of the vracinea can take no actions and offers no resistance to the vracinea’s attacks. Once a creature successfully saves against this effect, it is immune to the same vracinea’s lure ability for 24 hours. This is a mind-affecting, sense-dependent effect.
Dahlia relays the information she knows about the deadly plant, shielding it from her view with her hand.
Seeing Tumsy move to the flower before she can stop him, Dahlia draws on her magic to retrieve the wayward student.
"The flower has hypnotized Tumsy, feel free to destroy it!" she yells to the others.
Seeing Tumsy getting sucked into the beast's alluring flowers, Alim charges forward, drawing his Azimuth pistol as he runs. Doing his best to take aim while running, Alim fires at the beast.
Everyone moves to catch up with the rest of the group.
Dahlia uses her power to try and bring Tumsy back since it appears that he is being controlled by the plant.
Alim pulls out his pistol and takes a quick shot at it but it has been awhile since he has fired a gun and the shot misses.
The vcacinea finally comes to life as it tries to eat poor Tumsy. One of it's big mouths chops down on the critter, causing some serous pain.
Suddenly Hux also joins Tumsy up next to the monster! It would seem he is just as mind controlled as Tumsy.
The plant reaches out and tries to take a bite out of Hux was he moves. The bite seems to land hard on him as well.
[/ooc]
Tumsy wakes up from the mind controlling plant. That hurt, yes it did! He looks around to assess the situation. Come on Hux get out of here! That thing is scary! Hurry!
Hux then tries to scurry away from the enemy.
When the plant bites into Tumsy, Katara fires his rifle at it! The shot seems to hurt the plant.
Worried about Hux and Tumsy, Katara rushes some more shots onto the monster.
Tool runs up to get in sight to take a shot at the plant hoping to surprises it by taking a shot from behind Alim.
After taking a moment to steady himself, Alim takes a deep breath, focuses, and takes another shot at the beast.
Unable to be effective against the plant monster, Dahlia moves forward and readies an action to mind thrust any monkey that gets close enough. (hostile or not)
Jib moves up 30' to catch up to the group
Hux Finaly coming too takes a guarded step using tumsy's extra move and then a full withdraw action to safely rejoin the group.
Katara takes another two shots at the plant creature, but only one can seem to hit.
Tool manages to trick the large plant and hit with the follow up attack, even though he is shooting through his allies. It is a close call but it seems to be an effective shot.
Alim seems to ride off of the groups good luck this round with another sucessful attack against the enemy.
Dahlia keeps an eye out for more monkeys ready to blast them away.
Jib continues his move close to combat but without Hux telling him what to do, it seems to be a slow process.
Hux gets a gleam in his eye, as he is inspired by Tumsy to move but when he goes to move his legs for some reason they won't work... in fact nothing seems to be working.
The foul plant tries to take another bite out of the paralyzed Hux! It is able to sink it's teeth into him, but it feels like the bite could be worse.
[spoiler=GM Dice]
Hux! I told you to get out of there, yes I did! Those teeth seem like they hurt. He looks down at his own bite marks. Look you can do this! Just focus and we will try to get you out.
Everyone else, get that darn plant to save Hux!
Feeling like he can get more done with his other gun Katara switches to his Arc Rifle and takes another two shots at the tree monster.
At the sight of the beast gnawing on on his comrades, Alim takes a shot, but it isn't his best...
Unable to be effective against the plant monster, Dahlia moves forward and readies an action to mind thrust any monkey that gets close enough. (hostile or not)…….
Popping out from behind grass covered rock formation to take another shot
Hux finaly realizes that there is a fight going on and scrambles away from the creature he is for some reason gotten himself in melee combat with.
hux takes a moment to raise his defenses before bolting back to the group.
continuing to advance to the front of the group
Katara takes another two shots against the plant, the first blasts one of the mouths right off of the thing. The second hits the rune obelisk.
Alim is still struggling to get back to using his gun. He watches as the laser hits a tree and begins smoking. It doesn't appear to of caught, but definitely burned some wood.
Tool is on top of his trick attacks this fight. He manages to hide behind Alim again and shoot throw him some how hitting again! This time, his shot seemed to do very little damage.
Dahlia keeps watching for monkeys. She spots some in the canapies very far away watching the fight. They aren't least 125 feet away so they aren't being drawn into the plant.
Hux breaks free from what ever it was that was paralyzing him. He then runs back to the group hoping to be save from this plant monster. As he turns his back to move, the plant reaches out to bite his backside, but Hux's extra defense seemed to pay off as the plant can't land a bite.
The plant then moves at a slow pace to get in range and then tries to take a bite out of the robot. But getting one of it's mouths blown off is really effecting the thing as it failed to connect there as well.
You are alive, Hux, yes you are! Nice moving. But don't stop! Hurry, the plant is catching up! Tumpsy turns and point at the plant monster, Now go get him already!
Katara continues firing, though the extra bodies in front of him makes it a little harder to hit this time.
Katara takes another two shots at the plant and this time, it collapses with a large thud!
Before much more can happen, Dahlia catches a glint of something in the tree she is near. It looks like the monkey's may of stashed some gear in a hollow, but it is about 20 feet of the ground.
The Rune Obelisk rises above the jungle, just as Halkueem Zan’s notes promised. It’s an immense pillar of stone,approximately fifteen feet wide with an X-shaped cross section that provides climbing plants—including a network of green vines, several brilliant fuchsia bromeliads, and a host of violet flowers—excellent purchase.
There also appears to be some writing behind some of the plants, but to read it you would need to cut away some of the vines.
Oddly, you are able to spot a credstick in the dirt near where the plant was rooted down. It is worth 290 credits.
What is even stranger is in the foliage near the obelisk, you find a a frostbite-class zero rifle. It is scratched up and clearly chewed on but you would guess it still works. The battery has been ruptured and would need a new one before it could work properly.
Lastly, you find an estex suit I but this is ripped too much to be usable at all. It seems to of been chewed up by both the stingbats and the plant.
Following Dhalia's line of sight, Katara sees the hollow in the tree.
I can check out what's in that hole for you.
Katara uses his jump jets to fly 20 ft up to the hole and search it for anything to take.
Picking up the credstick, Dahlia searches the ground for other goodies or a sign of the group of merc's they seek.
Katara reaches the hollow without a problem and finds three mk 2 serums of healing.
Dahlia looks around for clues and it seems that there was definitely evidence that another group has been here, but it is hard to give an exact time line. As expected it seems to be a group of between 10-15 people... now with one less member.It is likely that the group ran as they plant ate one of them.
“A dramatic spire barely rising above the tree line was the first of our great landmarks. Each side of it was once engraved with untold wisdom, but only the sheltered runes near the base have survived the ages. The plants here grow thicker, as if feeding upon some gifts left by the ancient elves—sacrifices of flesh and blood, no doubt.”
Hux spends a couple minutes assessing this structure and determines that Zan was wrong. The structure was not a monument or spire but rather the post for an observation platform. It seems as of long ago, there was a large platform on top of this post that was used to see out great distances above the trees but time (or something else) has taken out the platform leaving just the huge post. Hux comes to this conclusion pretty easily so it would seem either Zan was clueless when making his observations or just didn't take time to really take in the sights before jotting down the first thing that comes to his head.
After a brief discussion the group descides to clear the vines and moss covering the post to read what is underneath. It is written in elven but luckily Dahlia, Alim, and Tumsy are able to read it for you. The words are eroded and worn from time so it is not the easiest to pull meaning from it.
Loskialua, monastery of starsong, embassy of the spheres, and Temple of the Twelve. Fragmentary notes also include mentions of paying respect, messengers from beyond, an academy, and “interpreters of the beacon.”
Dahlia casts detect magic and has a good look around for any missed clues, then suggests they move on.
Dahlia is unable to find any magical aura in this area.
Tumsy takes out his tablet and takes a photo of the writing.
hux seconds the vote to move on if they have left tracks here they cant be too much ahead of us we should try to catch up to them as quickly as possible.
Alim takes a few minutes and rests. Sitting, he takes in his surroundings, the giant plant that they defeated, and the post. After reading over the elven writing, Alim makes a mental note, and thinks about what it could all mean.
At the sound of the group getting ready to head out, Alim rises and nods, noting his ambition to keep moving.
The group heads out from this landmark. Confidence should be at a high since you have reached the first landmark so you know you are on the right path. Hux leads the group for the rest of the day feeling like everything is in the clear. At the end of the day, everyone hunkers down and camp runs with the same watch system as the night before. As you travel throughout the day, Dahlia is able recognize the one singbat she made a connection with following in the trees behind you.
Katara checks over his weapons to make sure they're all fine while some of his companions rest. Once they head out he uses 1 charge every other hour like before. It seems like the fight has drained him as he isn't able to handle the heat all that well.
Dahlia uses 12 more hours of protection from her armor.
Alim is having a rough day in the jungle. He can not help but feel warn out and hot most of the day.
Tumsy is having a surprisingly good day in the jungle. He is fatigued pretty early on buy keeps on going.
The day starts off relatively uneventful, but that calm doesn't last very long. About an hour into the day, Dahlia's keen eye sees a large sized colorful quadruped "trying" to sneak moving from bush to bush. It is staying about 150 feet away. It is staying in cover so you are unable to get more details about it at this time. Alim, Tool, and Tumsy also catch sight of it.
Dahlia points the creature out to the others and walks toward it (30') and calls out.
"You there, in the bushes, we can see you. Come out!
Alim walks up to near where Dahlia is standing. As he walks, Alim's orb drifts near his lower hand, in case action is to occur. Speaking to Dahlia, "Should I try to communicate with it?"
"I'm still not sure what it is." Dahlia tells her friend. "Be on your guard."