Pippimi grabs her starknife and dons her vibrogloves. "Pippimi not sure, but it not sound like something team can run away from... it sound BIG!"
If she can tell which direction its coming from, she interposes herself between the tents and the roaring threat!
|
The trees to the south shake as the thing gets closer. Then, a trumpeting roar fills the jungle and Clank recognizes the distinctive sound. A Whispered Renkroda!
Renkrodas make up an extensive category of large reptilian hypercarnivores that are distinguished by their long necks, decorative spines, and deadly sprints. Due to their size and place near the top of the food chain, they are often solitary and aggressively territorial. Their terrifying bellows—signaling the creatures’ efforts to maintain boundaries between one another and warn scavengers away from fresh kills—are one of the iconic sounds of northern wildernesses.
The whiskered renkroda is among the smaller varieties of renkroda, adapted to move easily through heavily forested areas and distinguished by the additional antennae that grow from its chin, which help it detect prey hiding in dense foliage. Like others of its kind, a whiskered renkroda has a four-chambered heart and a throat that can expand up to twice its normal diameter, allowing the creature to gulp air quickly and circulate blood effectively while in pursuit of prey. A typical hunting whiskered renkroda uses trees for cover as it stalks its victims or waits for a target to approach and then makes a sudden charge to snag its victim or knock it down.
Because many herbivores boast deadly defenses, the smaller renkrodas are fairly discerning when selecting prey.
Some whiskered renkrodas can be initially timid around unfamiliar humanoids, not knowing whether they are too dangerous or more trouble than they’re worth. The hungrier the animals grow, though, the more likely they are to attack, especially during lean times when other prey is limited.
Clank blinks at the sudden recognition of what the creature is. "Hey, guys? I don't think the 'Save the Renkrodas Society' is going to like us very much."
Pippimi applies seasoning awaits the rampaging Renkroda's arrival. Just in case she needs it, she also pulls a smoke grenade out of her pack.
"Pippimi sure Save Renkroda Society can make exception! She smash first and ask for permission later." She hops in place, ready to wrestle a dinosaur.
|
|
Trees bend and crack as the large dinosaur comes breaking into the clearing! Truly as fearsome as Clank described, the beast stands nearly ten feet tall and looks right at your group. It stops, staring for a moment, smelling the air. You get a beat to examine it and something looks... odd. There are small pink tufts of fur spotting it's body, like some freaky polka-dot sculpture. Some of them even seem to be dripping blood and fluids. Maddened by the pain, the renkroda seems to have made up it's mind. It wants to fight! It bares it's teeth and runs at the group. Lenny pees his pants a little and doesn't react as fast as the group.
Your lights help alleviate the darkness of the night, but some of you may struggle to see the dinosaur approach in the moonlight!
Dim Light
In dim light, you can somewhat make out shapes, but you can’t see precise details well at all. Dim light includes moonlight outside at night and bright starlight, or a starship’s emergency backup lights. An area just beyond the range of a light source has dim light. Creatures within an area of dim light have concealment (20% miss chance; see page 253) from creatures without darkvision or the ability to see in darkness. Because dim light is not ideal for observation, if you’re in an area of dim light, you can attempt a Stealth check to conceal yourself from creatures without low-light vision, darkvision, or blindsight. Dim light does not affect creatures with low-light vision, which can see in dim light as if it were normal light.
Lenny
Clank
Davrin
Zulu
Zoran
Pippimi
Whiskered Renkroda 0 dmg
Zulu readies his rifle at sounds and seismic shake of the beast's approach, correctly judging that running was a suboptimal strategy.
As the monster appears before them, the androids analytical mind takes note of the strange tufts dotting the beast's body.
"Fascinating. Perhaps afteraffects of the mold storm? No matter. Clear threat."
He mutters out even as he sets his exocortex to track the thing and snaps rifle to shoulder, set for extra crispy on the power dial.
Pippimi puffs up a little, calling out "Renkroda kinda big, kinda very big, but Pippimi ready!"
She waits until everyone else has had a chance to fire their weapons before stepping in closer and tossing her tactical starknife at the monster. She keeps her small furry body in between the renkroda and the rest of the team, hoping to block any deadly attacks.
Clank lets the shooty types fire their shots, then springs forward casting Grease in the area under and ahead of the great beast! "Hey, maybe after we kill this thing, we can use the grease to cook it!"
You cover a solid surface with a layer of slippery grease. Any creature in the area when the spell is cast must succeed at a Reflex save or fall prone. A creature can walk within or through the area of grease at half normal speed with a successful DC 10 Acrobatics check. Failure means the creature can’t move that round and must then succeed at a Reflex save or fall prone, while failure by 5 or more means it falls prone (see the Acrobatics skill for details). A creature that doesn’t move on its turn doesn’t need to attempt this check and isn’t considered flat-footed. The spell can also be used to create a greasy coating on an item. Unattended material objects are always affected by this spell. If you attempt to affect an object in a creature’s possession, the creature can attempt a Reflex save to negate the effect. If the creature fails the initial saving throw, it immediately drops the item and must attempt a new save each round it attempts to pick up, hold, or use the item. A creature wearing greased armor or clothing gains a +5 circumstance bonus to Acrobatics checks to escape a grapple and a +2 circumstance bonus to its AC against grapple combat maneuvers.
"I prefer our smaller...friends from earlier. I won't die again to some overgrown lizard." Zoran adds as the group begins to engage.
Then he motions for the others to cover their ears as he takes a very deep breathe and moments later a roar erupts from his lungs that sounds sounds similar to the Renkroda.
"You have chosen the wrong prey, attack and die!"
|
|
Zulu, locked in, sends a laser blast into the beast. Meanwhile Davrin leaps out of his amazing hiding place in the bushes... only to shoot a tree. Apparently his infrared sensors need a little calibration. Pippimi bravely moves forward, but her blade bounces off the thick scales of the dinosaur.
Goblin Grease squirts under the dino's feet, but he deftly walks over them - albiet slower than he would have otherwise and upsetting his charge!!! He stomps forward and bites at the oddly berry-like sirloin steak.
It's greasy teeth slide off Pippimi's thick armor!
Lenny
Clank
Davrin
Zulu
Zoran
Pippimi
Whiskered Renkroda 8 dmg, Shaken
Pippimi moves to the side to not mess up the intense weapons-fire from her allies , then leaps up to give the renkroda an energetic hug!
But the creature's scales are far more slippery than she expected. She recalls her starknife to her by tapping her paws together and looks up (way up) at the renkroda's head. "Come and get Pippimi, you overgrown house-lizard!"
Seeing then small blue puffball distract the beast, Zulu slides to his left to get a clear shot and loses another overcharged laser shot.
Clank mutters to himself as he sees the foe go over the grease he went through all the effort preparing. How can something so big be so agile?
"Well, there's more than one way to cook a giant bird-lizard"
|
|
The skittermander slides down the Renkroda's leg slowly, but Davrin's shot hits the beast in the knee. Zulu's laser heads into the woods but Clank sends a large laser bolt into the beast's chest.
It lazily turns, sending an enormous tail whipping around and into's Lenny's gut! The air gets knocked out of him, but he manages to stay on his feet. The renkroda roars into the air, sending shivers into your bones!
You are shaken! Roll a (1d4+1) to find out for how many rounds.
Lenny 12/24 SP
Clank
Davrin
Zulu
Zoran x2
Pippimi
Whiskered Renkroda 24 dmg
Pippimi rapidly puts two paws over her ears at the noise. "Grrrr! Pippimi thinking renkroda need to learn to behave!"
With a shout, she jumps into the air and scurries up the renkroda's hide. She swings around its neck, grabs the whiskers from its chin, and stretches them way out! With a bunch of whiskers in two paws, she swings back round to the back of its neck and ties the whiskers behind it, binding its chin against its neck painfully! "OK! Team attack time! Go Go Go!"
|
Lenny stands in place trying to overcome the massive tail slap. As the Renkroda moves on to its next target he does the first thing that comes to his mind, slashing at its heels.
He finds it easier than he thought it would be when he realizes that Pippimi has entangled it.
Good work Pip, keep it busy and I'll see if I can make it bleed out.
Clank's teeth chatter and his entire body clenches involuntarily after the renkroda's roar. "I. Thought. Drow. Music. Was. Bad." He tries to keep things together, opting to send his last spell whizzing at the creature.
Zoran dashes around to support Lenny after he takes the hit.
"Shake it off! We can't give it an opening!"
He then fires off a shot with his pistol staying close to intervene if it turns to focus on Lenny.
Clicking to himself at the miss, Zulu aims and fires his rifle again.
|
|
Pippimi, just like the high ropes course at the annual corporate retreat, scurries up the dinosaur's legs and wraps her vibrating hands around the renkroda's thick neck! The dinosaur twists in place, unable to move. Lenny jumps in, slashing into it's thick hide. Clank's shivering hands have no trouble casting the spell he knows so well. Three magical bolts of enery head unerringly into the beast's heart. Another roar, though weaker, echoes throughout the clearing. Zoran, shaken by the Roar, sends his laser into the dirt. Davrin adds insult to injury and shoots the renkroda in the ankle. Blood sprays onto the ground and the dinosaur stumbles a bit. Zulu takes a beat, his exocortex locked in on the Renkroda (and not the Pippimi). He sends a shot into the weakened location in the Renkroda's chest. The beast lets out a weak roar and tumbles to the ground. The skittermander manages to hop off without being crushed.
Lenny 22/24 SP
Clank Shaken, last round
Davrin
Zulu
Zoran Shaken, 3 more rounds
Pippimi
Whiskered Renkroda 80 dmg
Zulu keeps his rifle trained on the monster, waiting for s more sharp sighted member of the group to notice it even so much as twitch since everything on this forsaken planet seemed to do strange and fascinating! things.
And keeps silent. Shockingly.
"Huh. I expected a lot more from that. Now I'm wondering when the next shoe is going to drop, like a boot crushing an ant." Ever the semi-optimist, the goblin shrugs. "Hey, Davrin, did your Survival courses teach you how to cook Renkroda?"
Pippimi flips off the renkroda's necks and rolls twice before springing up. "Woo! Pippimi having fun for moment there! But team just too good at killing things, she not get to ride renkroda into sunset." She gives the team multiple thumbs up, grinning.
"Maybe we see more than one next time? Or maybe it have friend somewhere near here that still want to fight?" She stands on her toes and looks around in case there's another renkroda lying in wait.
|
Davrin looks at Clank incredulously. "You were serious about eating... that?" He shakes his head and shrugs. "Well, just grill it I guess? That works for pretty much anything..." Goblins...
"Pip, if I didn't know better, I would think you are looking forward to fighting another. And maybe I don't know better."
Zulu looks down at the goblin for a long moment before commenting.
"Pink spots on beast suggest possible mold spore infection. Do not recommend attempting to eat, possibly quite dangerous."
Then he goes back to scanning for threats. Muttering.
"If not for possible infection, autopsy would prove useful for scientific study. Not interested in studying affects of unknown mold plague... this time."
Pippimi spends the first hour of the morning evening doing some quick stretches and rolls around the campsite. "Pippimi feeling like billion bucks! Maybe Renkroda give really good workout? Could be start of new workout craze." She nods to herself. "Big problem is Ukulam being off limits."
She joins the rest of the group in sussing out the correct path forwards.
But she finds herself too distracted by the lashunta the team picked up. "Pippimi wondering why you not want to come join Blastwerks? It good change of pace from being part of world ruining entropy cult. Plus, get explosions either way, probably? Nine out of ten new employees agree explosions really fun."
|
|
"YES!" You hear Davrin's triumphant voice call out, breaking the still of the early morning. "Finally got this **** thing to work!" You see him tapping a few implants controls near his eyes and suddenly they glow ever so faintly. "Now I can see in the dark without these goggles." He rips then off his armor. "Anyone wants this?"
"Pip, so the last one out of ten got blown by explosions?" Davrin quips with a mischievous grin.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The lashunta...
...wakes up feeling mildly better. Pippimi, the blue ball of energy, begins pestering her before her morning coffee. Ralkawi frowns and looks at the skittermander through half-closed eyes. "Life sucks sometimes. Makes you want to fight the system, invest in something else. And besides, if it's all going to nothingness anyway then I might as well earn myself a place in it." She takes a long drag of her energy-cig (ZZAP-CIGS! SO GOOD, YOU CAN'T STOP!) and returns your glance. "Besides, there's probably more furballs there. Furballs are annoying. Apparently."
|
|
You awaken feeling stronger than ever and move on. Davrin has some trouble reading the stars this evening, and asks for help. "I think we are near the next landmark, but I'm having a little trouble..."
About halfway through the night, just after midnight, you break into a very large clearing that is nearly as large as the one in which you last found the yaruks. The trees on the edge of the area are thin, forming a broad clearing centered on an immense stone statue of a reclining elf whose skin bears dozens of raised markings like painful welts. The figure rests on one partially buried elbow while extending its other hand toward the sky, ending at least a hundred feet in the air. The elf’s simple robe and hair are both sculpted of heavily weathered metal that has corroded entirely in places. Numerous crumbling outbuildings ring the clearing, where only mosses and a few stubborn, stunted trees grow. The statue is facing upwards, like it is looking at the sky. Referencing your notes you assume this is the next landmark. To the explorer Halkueem Zan, the immense statue depicted a sickly elf wasting away from an unknown disease, leading him to dub it the “Plague Warden.” The large structure is about 200 feet away from you and at least 150 feet long. Between the feet of the statue appears to be a doorway into the structure.
The statue is surrounded by a large tiled plaza, a few hundred feet square. This broad expanse forms a plaza of jumbled paving stones shifted by sinkholes and tree roots. Several large pedestals stand half-buried beneath leaves, earth, and detritus throughout the area, though any statues that once stood atop them have since eroded into little more than fragile spikes and weathered cobbles. The millennia have not been kind to this plaza, turning the whole field into a mess of uneven paving stones.
Outside the courtyard are a number of crumbling outbuildings. Untold ages have reduced these buildings to low walls and buried foundations, with only a few fragmented walls standing more than four feet in height. The more complete structures have trapped millennia of sediment and runoff, forming a spongy floor of silt and moss.
"Hmm. Nothing at all ominous here. Nope. We should be careful." Clank looks around and proceeds with the party.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
After attempting to aid Davrin as best he could on the journey, Zulu enters the wide plaza with the rest of the group, attentively recording all the data as rapidly as possible over his rifle sights. After just about everything on this planet trying to kill them, the android has switched to a "shoot it first and question the burned remains" philosophy of discovery.
He was sure the environmentalists on this planet would not approve.
|
|
As Davrin struggles to do his usually awesome navigation, Lenny suddenly realizes he borrowed the professor's notes the previous night and forgot to return them!
Doh! Sorry. Here you go. It would have helped more hours earlier...
He shuffles quietly to the back of the line.
-------
That's a big elf. But, somehow I doubt the party we're following would have stopped off here for very long. As cool as this is, do we have time to tour it?
Much like Zulu, Pippimi has begun expecting plant-based predators around every corner. She advances into the courtyard with her vibrogloves on, her artillery laser at the ready, and her starknife out. With her free paw, she clears tangles out of her fur. "Hum hum! Statue even bigger than Pippimi guess from Zan notes! Very nice. Where next Davrin? Team must be getting close to kidnapped Doctor soon, right?"
"Even if we want to enter the statue we should circle the clearing before we walk into something we won't walk out of." Zoran suggests.
Keeping his rifle at the ready, Zulu backs up Lenny, following him around the clearing.
"Ominus layout. Sensors detect no danger. Perhaps overreaction. Ir skilled ambush"