Jenner's shirt glows a soft yellow. Sarine's sword emanates a gold color streaked through with black and Aurelian finds both his shield and chain shirt exhibit the same white glow that Ashlyn's ring has.
The corresponding room on the other side is much busier. It appears to be another workshop, but it has two mechanical humanoid creatures in it who both turn when Ashlyn opens the door.
They speak simultaneously and loudly in the lilting language of lost Azlant.
Sarine steps forward rather than backward at the demands of the creatures and glares up at the constructs, addressing them in a condescending voice.
"How dare you! I am Sarine Dulciare, and my ancestors began the Spindle Solution. I have been granted full authority over this project and your actions are out of line. You have been working here far too long and are malfunctioning. Stand down at once!"
Aurelian waits, sword ready if needed.
Ashlyn opens up her mouth to speak but is startled into silence by Sarine's terrifying presence!
The noise seems to stun the servitors for a second, but then a door on the right opens - revealing another skum soldier! As he moves into the room and brandishes his trident the servitors recover.
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"Boring conversation anyway," Sarine growls as she draws her greatsword and attacks the servitors.
Aurelian joins her in combat, closing quickly with the skum to skewer it.
"Oh! We're fighting now!" Ashlyn exclaims in surprise. She focuses on a tool from the workbench and pulls it towards herself with her mind, hurling it at the back of the robot's head!
But it misses, hitting the nearby wall with a CLANG!
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Elizar flies into battle, throwing himself at the nearest construct -- and flying right through it! Floating on the other side of the machine man Elizar looks around in confusion. Clearly he had forgotten he was incorporeal.
He turns around, looks at Ashlyn, and crosses his arms in agitation. He howls a single word at Ashlyn.
He sighs deeply.
Aurelian skewers the skum, but not seriously. Sarine on the other hand, strikes a blow that nearly fractures the servitor, cracks appearing all over its surfaces.
"I'm gonna have to learn that damned language, aren't I," Jenner grouses to himself as he hurries on his perpetually stubby legs to join the fray.
Jenner finishes the job that Sarine began, smashing the servitor into small clockwork pieces.
"Violence is unacceptable. Lay down your arms!" The other servitor scolds in Azlanti. The skum simply presses its attack as another one appears behind it!
The servitor steps backwards into Elizar, although it doesn't seem concerned by this and fires a net at Sarine, entangling the woman!
The first skum stabs at the netted woman, while the second attempts to give Aurelian a new and larger smile! Both hit, leaving nasty puncture wounds.
HP 15/21; Hero Points 0/2
AC 20, touch 13, flat-footed 17
Fort +2, Ref +6, Will -1 (0/1 set mind; 0/3 charmed life)
CMD 14 (16 vs. disarm)
Panache: 3/3 (0/1 deed reroll);
Effects:
Aurelian grimaces as he takes a wound, mentally kicking himself for letting overconfidence get the best of him instead of preparing for a counterattack. His teachers would be most displeased -- if they weren't shocked to the point of insensibility by his mistake.
He votes to not be quite so reckless again and jabs at the wounded skum.
Sarine swings her greatsword at the skum, determined to put an end to the violence.
"Oh, dear! You look wounded!" Ashlyn exclaims unnecessarily as she steps into the corner of the room. She lays a hand on Aurelian's shoulder and concentrates on his wounds, forcing them to close with her mind.
Then she gasps. "Oh, and you too, Sarine?"
Elizar glares at the robot who is 'stepping' on him! He wails sadly and trails after Ashlyn.
Jenner steps forward and hacks!
He is way, way off balance.
Sarine lashes out and smashes the clockwork servitor before turning to the skum warrior attacking her. Unfortunately neither she nor Aurelian can land a solid blow.
The two skum easily block Sarine and Aurelan's attacks and retaliate brutally, leaving the two warriors badly wounded.
HP 6/21; Hero Points 0/2
AC 20, touch 13, flat-footed 17
Fort +2, Ref +6, Will -1 (0/1 set mind; 0/3 charmed life)
CMD 14 (16 vs. disarm)
Panache: 2/3 (0/1 deed reroll);
Effects:
Aurelian grunts as the trident penetrates his guard -- no one should ever learn of this day, for Aurelian Fache is off his game, and his life is in peril, which is almost unfathomable.
Gritting his teeth against the wounds -- despite his blood, they don't really hurt, because Aurelian Fache isn't one to succumb to injury -- and launches another furious assault, his previous lapses giving him focus.
He keeps his guard up against further attacks.
As the monster undoes all her wonderful healing on Aurelian, Ashlyn frowns.
"Hey! Cut that out!" she exclaims.
Ashlyn lays a hand on Sarine's shoulder this time and concentrates on her wounds, forcing them to close with her mind.
Then she pulls out a healing potion.
"Thank you Ashlyn. We'll wrap this up quickly," Sarine says through gritted teeth. Even if you get healed, those tridents really hurt...
Jenner curses as two on their team take deep wounds. "Good work there, Ashlyn, now fall you slimy bastards--"
Shaking his head, Jenner steps back. "Mr. Ghost! Get in there if you can do better than me!"
It appears that being poked by sharp sticks is exactly the kind of motivation that Aurelian and Sarine need as both cause grevious wounds on their skum opponents.
Sarine's foe, with thick blood streaming from its chest fails to land a blow, while Aurelian flicks the trident aside and buries his rapier in the skum's eye, withdrawing neatly as it collapses to the ground - dead.
The remaining skum falls under a flurry of blows finally leaving the party unassaulted.
The room beyond, from which the skum came, carries the coppery smell of blood. A gleaming metal table covered in blood stands in the northeastern corner of the room. Just south of the table is a smaller one, covered in surgical tools - some of which have clearly seen recent use. A body lies in a butchered pile in the center of the room. An etched metal sheet on the eastern wall appears to be surgical instructions, detailing incision lengths, depths and the position of major nerves and muscles in a human form.
The bloodied pile of clothes contains two small bars of an odd grey soap.
"What are these things?" Sarine asks as she kicks at one of the fallen skum before she leans against a nearby wall, catching her breath after the brief combat.
As the party enters the next room, Sarine curses under her breath. "So that's what those creatures were up to. Who was this person? If they were one of the colonists, maybe just their presence here can help us find the others. If not...we need to know who else is in the area."
Ashlyn approaches Elizar and places her hands on him. A nasty green goop travels from her hands into Elizar, coating him completely.
"There. Fixed," she says with a smile.
Elizar crosses his goopy arms and wails something at Ashlyn, clearly displeased with her.
Ashlyn's smile doesn't falter as she gives Elizar a reassuring pat on the shoulder. She passes him a healing potion and makes sure he drinks it.
She holds up another potion to the others. "Does anyone else want a healing potion?"
---
When Ashlyn follows Sarine into the next room, her jaw drops. "Oh... my..." She places a hand to her mouth in shock and looks desperately sad.
Jenner shakes off his axe with a sigh. "Damned thing seems off-balance on land. Now look, the two of you got banged up, let me patch you before we go off finding new foes..."
He grimaces at the sight of the poor bastards in the next room, and moves to try and set the body to some manner of right, mangled as it is. "Abadar wept. These bloody monsters. At this rate, the cemetery will be outstripping our colony. Ah, yeh poor soul, I am sorry we were not here sooner. Who were you, I wonder," he says, echoing Sarine's question as he tries to carefully bundle the butchered body up for a later burial.
Elizar wails something at Ashlyn with an 'I-told-you-so' sort of look on his face.
Ashlyn gives her head a shake and moves into the room to help Jenner gather up the parts of the body for burial.
Elizar eyes the dirty looking soap and stalks over to it. He picks up and sniffs it. Then stares at it again...
He hands the soap to Ashlyn and stares at her for a while, clearly communicating mentally.
Ashlyn looks surprised. "Really? Well, that does sound useful."
Ashlyn puts the soap into her bag. "Elizar says this soap is called 'Soul Soap.' It will make you filthy if you wash with it, but it will also allow anyone cleaned with it a second chance to resist a hostile mind-affect. Like... mind control or something? I guess? I'm not sure. Anyway, if might be hard to wash someone with it if they don't want to, but it sure does sound handy."
HP 12/21; Hero Points 0/2
AC 20, touch 13, flat-footed 17
Fort +2, Ref +6, Will -1 (0/1 set mind; 0/3 charmed life)
CMD 14 (16 vs. disarm)
Panache: 3/3 (0/1 deed reroll);
Effects:
Aurelian's face falls as he sees the death inside.
"This is not good. Men are not meant to die like this," he says, shaking his head, his usual grin replaced by a grim look.
Like the others, he wonders who this person was and how in fact he or she did die.
Jenner inspects Sarine and and Aurelian's injuries with a tsk, and requests that Abadar give a little aid on credit, as it were.
"Hm, that soap does sound handy. I'll carry one of the bars, we should split those up though. And the healing potions-- try and spread them around, yeh?"
Jenner then returns to the somber work of body-bundling.
"Ah, thank you," Aurelian says. "It was only a scratch, but it still feels better. Some people say scars are sexy, but Aurelian Fache thinks that is a sign of failure."
Sarine's investigation show that the man was surgically butchered - there really is no other way to describe the precise nature of his dissection. Unfortunately said dissection was so thorough that it has left no identifying marks of any sort to put a name to the poor soul that died in this room.
Heading up the ramp at the end of the main room, the party emerge onto the second level - into a well lit room sporting a number of bookshelves, filled with slowly disintegrating tomes. Opposite the bookshelves is a small plinth with a nondescript bust of a woman. A large table on the eastern side of the room separates the party from a huge skum, at least six feet tall and built to match who wields a large axe in both hands.
The warrior circles the table before lashing out with a mighty blow at Sarine. She is far too nimble however and it merely cleaves a corner from the table.
HP 21/21; Hero Points 0/2
AC 20, touch 13, flat-footed 17
Fort +2, Ref +6, Will -1 (0/1 set mind; 0/3 charmed life)
CMD 14 (16 vs. disarm)
Panache: 3/3 (0/1 deed reroll);
Effects:
"Ah, you must be the champion of these people," Aurelian says. "If you surrender now and tell us who you are and why you are here, Aurelian Fache will spare your life and dignity in this fight."
With no immediate answer, Aurelian falls into his practiced form, blade flicking out towrd the skum's face.
"Ha!" he exults in the blow, his cockiness getting the better of him as he assumes the telling attack has secured victory already instead of properly getting back into position to parry and reply blow. "You cannot say Aurelian Fache did not warn you!"
Ashlyn hurries forward behind the table and comes out on the other side. She stares hard at a plate from the table and hurls it at the monster man with her mind.
Elizar follows Ashlyn into the room and climbs up onto the table. Then he slams into the monster!
Sarine steps around the skum with fury burning in her eyes. "You'll pay for what you did to that man," she growls at the skum.
Jenner hurries after the others-- short dwarf legs, AGAIN-- and tries to get into position to help attack!
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Aurelian drives his rapier neatly under one of the skum's armored scales, causing a mighty bellow of anger and pain from the axe-wielding warrior. Elizar uses that moment to slam into its side, but this sends Sarine's blow wide and Jenner loses his footing on the slippery floor, circling his arms wildly to keep his balance and only, by the grace of Abadar, not being bowled over by the plate which Ashlynn (accidentally one presumes) throws his way!
The Skum warrior seems more angered by Elizar's attack than afraid and mauls the spirit warrior for all he is worth, his axe tearing through Elizar's ectoplasmic form and leaving a great rent down his torso!
Skum -16 HP
Sarine isn't sure whether to be concerned about Elizar's wounds or not. He's already dead, right?
Regaining her footing, Sarine lashes out at the skum again. She has little energy left, and this fight needs to end now.
Ashlyn lets out a shriek of worry. "Elizar! Oh, be careful!"
She focuses on another plate and throws it at the skum's head!
Missing again!
Elizar howls in rage and lashes out at the skum!
HP 21/21; Hero Points 0/2
AC 20, touch 13, flat-footed 17
Fort +2, Ref +6, Will -1 (0/1 set mind; 0/3 charmed life)
CMD 14 (16 vs. disarm)
Panache: 3/3 (0/1 deed reroll);
Effects:
Aurelian continues his assault on the skum.
"Ha! You are smart to be scared of the dead man, because you will soon be dead," he taunts.
Sarine lands a great blow, but the skum withstands it somehow, seemingly little phased by a blow that would strike down a lesser being. Aurelian is quick to take advantage however and lands another blow, retreating in perfect form.
Jenner up!