Pippimi rolls after Zulu and Lenny, piping up with "Careful Zulu, Lenny, not spread out team too much!"
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The group begins to move around the statue, still not sure whether to be afraid or excited about the enormous structure in the jungle. As you enter the large plaza-like area, you realize it is terribly hard to walk without rolling an ankle on the broken and angled tiles.
[ooc]Now THAT is a detail I totally missed. I wasn't sure where to start the party so I chose the west side at random. Besides, I figured there was very little chance someone wouldn't want to investigate the statue. And after stepping into the plaza the group gets on a train they can't really stop.
I figured we shouldn't be left out on the spoilers so I wanted to let everyone know they are doing a great job...even you Ralkawi.
"Yeah stay close. Lenny, you feeling alright? Don't want us getting hijacked by plants again." Zoran jokes quietly keeping pace with the others.
Pippimi advances some more into the courtyard, rolling back and forth between the tilted stone tiles. Rather distracted after the third mini hill she rolls up and back down, she pipes up with "This remind Pippimi of pinball game in office break room! Rolly grenade go every which way~"
Clank looks around suspiciously, wondering what spectacular impending doom is about to befall on the party.
Zulu continues to keep pace with Lenny, keeping him covered while the rest of the group catches up.
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Ralkawi shouts out to Pippimi, "You guys play with grenades? We do that too! Sometimes, if two people aren't showing enough dedication to the Devourer, we would have them play hot potato! You see, we'd pull the pin, then yell HOT POTA-WHOA!" She stops mid-sentence, pointing up towards the sky! You look up and see this blue undulating wave, hovering in the air about fifty feet above you. It's large, over fifteen feet in diameter, partially translucent with thin veins of darker blue running throughout. Thick rope-like tendrils hang down from the mass, moving slowly in the wind. Then you notice the large black mouth in the center, with a small ring of suckers surrounding it. The...beast(?) is turning more blue under your gaze, from the color of the sky to the color of the sea. But within just a second, one of the tendrils snaps out at Lenny!
The tendril wraps around Lenny's waist, holding him tight! The blue muscle squeezes him, bruising his skin.
You are ensnared. Being entangled impedes your movement but does not entirely prevent you from moving unless the bonds are anchored to an immobile object or tethered by an opposing force. You move at half speed, you cannot run or charge, and you take a –2 penalty to your AC, attack rolls, Reflex saving throws, initiative checks, and Dexterity-based skill and ability checks.
A creature can end the entangled condition early with a successful DC 23 Acrobatics check to escape or by dealing damage to the filament, severing it (the filament has the same AC as the sky fisher).
This is a sky fisher! Sky fishers are aerial ambush predators notorious for casting sticky, anesthetizing filaments with which they reel in their quarry. A sky fisher’s blood contains hemocyanin, which gives the creature a bluish tone. However, it can deoxygenate its blood to turn its body colorless, making the sky fisher sluggish but rendering it mostly translucent as it watches for prey. Their bite is deadly, containing a weakening agent.
The aberrations have remarkably complex brains that allow them to analyze patterns and even learn speech, which they observe by using their rounded bodies to magnify sounds emanating from the ground below. This predatory intelligence makes sky fishers a major threat to Castrovelian cities, most of which employ automated defenses to scare off the creatures.
Though they spend the entirety of their adult lives in the air, sky fishers lay their eggs in saltwater. Their amphibious young spend 7–8 months in the seas before clambering onto nearby rocks—losing the ability to breathe underwater—and then catching the seasonal winds to become airborne.
Lenny 13/24 SP; ENTANGLED
Clank
Davrin
Zulu
Zoran
Pippimi
Blue-Octopus-Thing
Pippimi puffs up. "Big jellyfish let Lenny go! He not appreciate tentacles! Maybe try Davrin?." She steadies her artillery laser over her head and fires a pair of shots at the floating beast.
"Hey, guys, that's a Sky Fisher. I know lots of fascinatingly useless knowledge about them... but try not to let it bite you. In case that wasn't already clear."
Clank taps on his wrist and makes a couple gestures at the sky, starting to cast his new spell Summon Monster (II).
Unsurprised that this planet would regugitate up yet another horror to manace the group so quickly, Zulu snaps his rifle to shoulder and cuts loose twice at the giant jellyfish death monster with his laser rifle.
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Lenny takes his solar energy and slices right through the thin tendril! It snaps away, spraying blue fluid onto the pavings. Clank knows that the skyfisher's bite applies a strength-sapping poison and that the lassoing tentacle can pull grown men up into the air!
The skyfisher floats across the sky, moving an incredible fifty feet! Another tentacle lashes downwards, wrapping around Pippimi's small midsection! It squeezes in, bruising and holding the little skittermander.
Lenny 13/24 SP
Clank
Davrin
Zulu
Zoran x2
Pippimi 17/28 SP; ENTANGLED
Blue-Octopus-Thing 8 dmg
"Eh he he he. This very good move! Bring Pippimi to jellyfish!" Pippimi chirps even as the tendril starts dragging. She points her artillery laser directly up into the open mouth of the beast and fires a laser blast.
And then, against all reason, Pippimi begins to climb up the tendril. She calls out "Jellyfish not grab Pippimi. In Ukulam, Pippimi grab you!"
Zoran runs up as the group engages and encourages Lenny as he is grabbed.
"Lenny, stop playing around. This is no time for your stretch band exercises." he jokes as Lenny slices through the tentacle.
Seeing Pip become entangled next he shares some more advice for both friend and foe.
"So now Lenny has you doing the stretches?" he says shaking his head and turning upwards towards the creature with a far more serious look.
"And you...how many tendrils are you going to lose before you flee. We do not die." he shouts at the creature.
Annoyed that this thing seems to move so fast, Zulu sets his exocortex to target and track its erratic movement even as he sets his rifle to overcharge and takes aim again, hoping to slow the thing down. Maybe get Pippimi to drop it for a bit.
"Drop Pippimi in water, does she get wet? Or does the water get Pippimi?"
He mutters as he works the trigger.
Clank isn't sure why, but suddenly he has a strong compunction to yell, "Fly my pretties! Fly!" as his summoned air elementals wink into existence, somehow looking like a mixture between a goblin made of air and a pirahna. The trio of tiny elementals swarm over the larger flying beast, shredding it with galeful claws. To add injury to insult, he also takes a shot at the thing.
His own shot almost explodes in his face as he admires his summons' handywork. "Well, that's vaguely unsettling."
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And then, against all reason, Pippimi begins to climb up the tendril.
Pippimi sends a large blast of laser up at fisher, blowing a small hole and raining blue jelly down below. Then... she begins to climb it? Just like gym class, her eight limbs move speedily up the nearly 50 foot tentacle until she is over 15 feet off the ground! Lenny spins in a circle, missing Pippimi's tentacle but finds another that was searching for her! It quickly pulls upwards, now out of reach.
Zoran shouts to his friends, helping them ignore their bruises. However his words do not seem to have the same effect on the creature! In fact, it doesn't react at all! Meanwhile, Zulu's exocortex must be busy deciphering the riddle he put forth, because the target, and the shot, goes wide! Davrin's stealth is also thrown by the riddle, but his aim is not! The laser hits another vein in the skyfisher's membranes.
The appearance of the tiny gobbo-pirahnas distracts the beast, allowing one of the things to rip straight through a wing! A second one gnaws on the other side while the third distracts! The beast sends a telepathic scream into your minds, overwhelmed by the pain.
It drops down suddenly, surprising all of you. It drops to twenty feet above the ground, and bites at the tasty berry in it's tentacles!
The beak-like mouth crunches into Pippimi's armor, slavering with a greenish slime.
Your strength is sapped!
As you all look up in horror, a rings out through the air!
Lenny 24/24 SP
Clank
Davrin
Zulu
Zoran x2
Pippimi 5/28 SP; ENTANGLED, 15 feet up
Air Elementals
Blue-Octopus-Thing 46 dmg, 50 feet up
"Wuh? Who cares who gets wet? Just shoot it!"
In the space and time between heartbeats, synthetic or biological, Zulu ponders Davrin's comments as well as the cryptic riddle he had, unintentially, uttered. It was pure nonsense, a rhetorical question that had no bearing on the situation on hand, uttered in.. jest?
what is the term? Flippiant?
This presented a conundrum for the android. He, as a rule, was not particularly inclined to talk in the first place and extra, unnessary, verbiage was certainly against his nature. Joking was right out.
Yet, he had quipped, unsolicitated.
Even as his exocortex continued feeding targetting data, and his hand seamlessly found the "normal crispy" power setting on his rifle, Zulu pondered why on several occasions he has unintentionally vocalized nonsense. Diagnostics indicated no unusual anomolaies on his neural pathways, and his best medical scans had indicated no lasting effects from the Void Plague or the parasitic plant thorn disease. Yet, inconsistencies remain.
Upon further reflection, the android determined another possibility. Prolonged contact with this group of biologicals. In his long life he had not had as much as close contact with a single group of sentients... ever.
Perhaps they are. What is the phrase... rubbing off on me?"
Something to ponder, at any rate.
The water definately gets Pippimi
Is his final thought as he watches the little blue furball climb up the tendrils of the floating monster.
Then it bit the little fuzzy salessentient and time for pondering was over.
Finding a solution he liked on his cortex, Zulu fires twice.
Pippimi chirps with distress as the creature gnaws at her "Pippimi not like! Pippimi not like!" but when she immediately starts feeling sick, she follows the "1,2,3 of Not Dying" as taught by her First Aid course. First, she takes out a Tier 1 antitoxin, second, she injects it near the wound, and third, she shouts "Pippimi need first aid! Any first aider near?"
"Pippimi! I clearly said 'Don't Let It Bite you!' That should have gone without saying!" Clank and his elemental swarm continue to lash out at the monster.
"Pippimi not trying to let bite! How about Clank try to dodge giant mouth bigger than he is?"
Zoran exhales in pain as the sniper round pounds his armor.
He tries to look around but is still short of breath.
"It must be the same one from before...in the herd of longnecks. They must not have gotten the memo about us not dying either..."
He holds up his laser pistol and fires off two shots at the skyfisher hoping to bring it down quickly.
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Lenny's head is suddenly on a swivel scanning the surrounding tree-line for where the shot might have come from.
Who's there?
His solar sword dissipates and returns to an orbit around his head as a solar mote, as he draws his laser pistol.
Aiming it up at the sky fisher he focuses on what he *think* is the mouth.
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Quite oblivious to the existential crisis swarming over his android friend, Davrin spins around trying to identify the source of the irritant. "Clank, send one of your little air balls after it!"
But as his long professional experience has taught him, always focus on the business at hand, no matter what other distractions there might be. He continues to move up to close in with the monster and fires.
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The poison flows through Pippimi's veins! Yet, her fortitude keeps her going! The rest of the team wastes no time in saving the skittermander. An air elemental rips a piece of flesh away, Zoran and Lenny take out the edge of a wing - sending the flying octopus into a tailspin. Clank, breathing in deep and focusing, sends an enormous blast of laser into the beast's maw! It explodes in gore, sending blue pieces everywhere and dropping a small little berry!
Pippimi falls the fifteen feet and lands on the ground with a thud! You all wait a moment, for the dreaded pop of a sniper rifle... but nothing happens. Ralkawi walks closer and looks at the group of you with distaste. "Uh...Does your Bang-works or whatever offer free baths? Cause...gross."
Lenny 24/24 SP
Clank
Davrin
Zulu
Zoran 18/28 SP
Pippimi 0/28 SP, 29/30 HP; Entangled, Weakened
Air Elementals
Skyfisher 86 dmg
Sniper?!?!?!?!
"We need to find that sniper or get into cover, now! Cover Pip the best you can till we get clear..." Zoran calls out as he looks around panicked not wanting to take another bullet.
Reluctantly he points to the structure...
We could be trapped in there...like on the pilgrim ship. But we have to do something.
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Davrin quickly runs find cover behind one of the larger blocks, hoping that he at least got the direction of fire right and that he is indeed hiding on the right side. "No, I saw nothing! Dammit, next civilised place I get to, I'm getting a sniper rifle!" It would still have been useless here since no one can see the sniper, but logic tends to fail under fire.
Pippimi hauls herself off the pavement and shakes her furry head. "Ooof- Remind Pippimi not to do skydiving without parachute at next corporate retreat." She immediately starts rolling towards cover, but the going is slow across the difficult terrain of the courtyard. As she rolls she takes out her one smoke grenade and starts trying to work out where to throw in order to cover the group from the sniper.
Clank looks around. "Yeah... you guys are going to have to help find that sniper." He sends the elementals flying towards the top of the statue just in case.
Zulu moves to cover behind the wall to his right, while scanning for the location of their sniper.
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The elementals fly towards the head of the large statue with an impressive speed. As they near the top of the head, two of the little creatures begin shouting in this whispery language that some of you recognize as Auran!
"Here! The sniper is here! She's inside the head!"
Another shot rings out through the clearing, swiftly followed by a thud as the high powered bullet sinks into Zoran's armor! Several of you recognize the sound this time. It's the same as the shot that started the long-neck stampede!
Lenny 24/24 SP
Clank
Davrin
Zulu
Zoran 6/28 SP
Pippimi 0/28 SP, 29/30 HP; Weakened
Air Elementals
Skyfisher 86 dmg
Sniper!
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Davrin looks briefly torn between running headlong into an unknown structure or attempting to shoot the sniper from where he is. However, not knowing where that person is kind of decides it for him.
"Looks like, Lenny! Let's go." Davrin races across towards the feet, keeping an eye out for the sniper.
Pippimi rolls forwards as fast as she can across the rubble-strewn courtyard. "Windy dudes can get in and keep busy, Pippimi thinking! That way team have chance to get to statue legs?"
Clank looks around. "Huh. I didn't expect that to actually work. Those ones aren't going to last long."
He moves behind the nearest pillar and starts summoning another trio of elementals while the ones he has descend upon the sniper.
Unfortunately the power that is holding them to this plane apparently is starting to break down and their attacks are more aether than solid.
Zoran coughs even more as the next blast nearly knocks him off his feet. He shakes his head getting furious at the repeated attacks.
"Two shots and that is it? I have died once already and that isn't going to cut it. We don't die but you will when we reach you." he yells running along with the others.
"I vote not giving this one an invitation to the group." he tells the others.
Seeing their melee members charging into the structure and the Goblin casting more spells, Zulu hunkers behind the wall and trains his rifle on the swirling elementals, hoping the distracted sniper will show itself and get roasted.
The android figured hed stay near Clank in case something else jumped out of the jungle.
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The group moves forward, unsure of exactly what is going on the elf's enormous head. Inside the structure, winds are whipping around the shirren sniper's head! Dodging and weaving, most of the wind goblin thrusts slide off her armor. Taking a guarded step away from the beasts, the shirren looks down to the sword at her waist. With an angry grunt she shakes her head and runs up the stairs!
Lenny 24/24 SP
Clank
Davrin
Zulu
Zoran 6/28 SP
Pippimi 0/28 SP, 29/30 HP; Weakened
Air Elementals
Skyfisher 86 dmg
Sniper!
Pipimmi continues her slow rolling up and down the slopes of the courtyard cobblestones. "Pippimi never see courtyard so messy before. She- getting- tired..." She huffs a bit. "Maybe that poison speaking!"