While Jarix looks around the technomagic lab, Mal lets the team know that she found the engineering bay through the door to N3. With her arc pistol drawn and ready, she moves through the automatically opening door and looks around for signs of danger, or for anything that might prove useful to the crew of the Brilliance.
|
The captain cautiously enters the door to the south.
Hearing the sound overhead, Mal edges back toward the door and speaks telepathically to Verne, "I think there might be something in here, Verne. Stand ready and let the others know. I'm moving in to see if I can draw it out."
The foolhardy captain advances toward the pedestal to inspect the wires and runes.
|
|
Mallura signals Verne, then moves into the room. The central pedestal appears to have once held some important technological device, but nothing remains of its hidden purpose. Suddenly, the whisper from the ceiling descends from its hiding place! Two whispers, in fact, each one a three feet long serpentine body covered in sparking spines with a pair of red leathery wings! They hiss and attack!
Despite being alert to the noise they were making, Mallura is surprised at the pair of them swooping down at her. As it draws near, the flying snake lets out a pulse of electrical activity!
The captain twists out of the way, taking a small static shock, but avoiding the thing's ire.
"BRILLIANCE CREW! ON ME!" Mallura shouts as she steps back toward the door again and draws her laser pistol. She raises the weapon and fires off a shot at Yellow.
Jarix runs to help his captain. He makes it to the door and fires.
Hearing the Captain's call, JD rushes forward into the room past Jarix and Verne. He arrives in the room and fires a shot at one of the creatures attacking Mallura.
The drone moves forward behind the group to find a firing line.
"Ugh, electrovores! Watch out, they'll zap ya! And electric shocks won't phase them." JD calls out when he recognizes the common starship pests.
Verne, weary and bloodied, blinks then readies himself as yet another monstrosity emerges from these foresaken ruins.
"Electrovores indeed...drat."
He casts Reflecting Armour on himself in preparation.
Jarix fires twice.
Mal takes a guarded step away from electrovore 2, muttering a few words of encouragement to herself as she pulls back. "Come on Mal, you can't let these space-pests be the end of you!"
Verne casts Mystic cure to recover from the electrovore's blow:
He holds his ground in preparation for an attack.
JD takes a guarded step back diagonally into the engine room and fires again at the creature.
The drone fires through the doorway at yellow.
|
|
JD and Sh-Ux both score ragged holes in the electrovore nearest to the door, but the thing hisses and spits. On the other side of the room, its mate descends on the captain!
The captain takes a crackling whap! to the neck and shoulder.
Jarix takes a shot at yellow. "We're with you, Captain."
Mallura feints a swing at the electrovore, then takes a guarded step back toward JD.
Verne fires off a shot at the remaining electrovore.
JD and the drone try to take down the remaining creature.
Sh-Ux moves into the room and fires.
|
|
JD and Sh-Ux turn on the remaining electrovore and release a hail of bullets, opening up a score of wounds on the off-balance thing.
Hissing and writhing, the remaining monster flies above the central bowl-shaped console and releases a pulse of electromagnetic energy, hitting everyone save for Jarix!
The blast takes the captain and the mechanic by surprise! Jarix shakes out of a similar state just as the blast occurs.
Jarix moves to take cover and fires again.
Mal curses as the electric shock courses through her. She raises her laser pistol and fires in retaliation at the electrovore.
Verne lobs a nearby piece of debris at the electrovore.
Both JD and the drone fire again...
...And miss
|
|
Verne, Sh-Ux, and JD blast erratically and off-target, harming nothing but inert starship engine chassis coils.
The angered creature lashes out twice, once at Verne and once at Sh-Ux!
Verne dodges, but the drone takes a dent to its shell.
Jarix aims and fires again
Both the drone and the human take a moment longer to aim at the pest and fire again.
|
|
The rain of firepower from JD, Sh-Ux, and Jarix bring down the smoking corpse of the last electrovore. A small cloud of ozone fills the air as the low hum of the inert spaceship takes over from the frenzied air.
A closer inspection of the engine room reveals molten slag covering the entire southern wall and southwestern corner of the room.
There appears to have once been a passage leading south, but a river of scorched metal now bars that exit from this room. The eastern door has also suffered damage, and now requires forcible shifting back into its frame in order to open it.
JD moves to get a closer look at the engines he's been waiting to see. He keeps his pistol handy incase the 'vore that took off is still lingering somewhere.
"This slag... it's still warm. Looks like an engine coil blew when it got power recently. Squibs must be trying different systems, I hope they're not trying to get this old wreck in the air."
|
|
JD is able to the eastern door back into its frame, rendering it usable once more. The rest of the team scour the room, finding nothing of interest and no clue as to what the empty, central, hemispherical pedestal once contained or controlled.
JD peeks through the door, revealing an empty corridor with two doors in the northern and southern walls, leading to the technomagical lab and the parept's room respectively, as per the read-out provided by Ellioch. The end of the hallway appears collapsed, crushed, and impassable, likely via the crash that brought this ship to the surface of Nakondis.
Looking down at her map of the ship, then regarding the blocked passageways, Mal traces a route with her finger, then closes her comm screen with a tap. "Alright. Looks like our way forward is through the perapt's room. Before we head that way, though, I'm going to call a rest for us. Those pesky little zappers got me a handful of times, and it looks like I'm not the only one. So take 10, Brilliance crew!"
"Sounds good," Verne chimes in, "let me know if anyone needs to heal up."
"Good idea, Mal. Everyone ok to keep going? Been a pretty tough slog so far."
JD thanks Verne for the offer but just needs a few minutes to rest. The mechanic takes a moment to assess the drone's new chassis before retrieving some tools from around his waist and setting to work with some minor repairs.
"I've felt better. Could use a little help."
Jarix is at less than half hit points.
Spend a RP to recover Stamina.
|
|
During their well-earned breather, the team notices that the door they're about to push through sports a curious engraving - a trident sheathed in flames - covering the entire surface of the door.
Once prepped and ready, the captain heads up to the door. Just like all of the intact doors on this starship, the door silently slides open to touch, revealing a meticulously-kept room. The large chamber appears to have been luxurious accommodations for a single occupant, with a single large bunk in the northwest and a desk of smooth metal to the east. Standing upright near the desk is a trident. The trident balances on the end of its haft and glows with white flames.
Standing motionless by the bunk is a large robot resembling a broad-chested humanoid with four arms, tracked wheels in place of feet, a blank faceplate containing only a single eye, and a metal grill that resembles a full, curving moustache. As Mallura steps into the room, the robot jerks into action, crackling Azlanti at the door.
"သူမ Parept Ameondria ၏ပုဂ္ဂိုလ်ရေးနေရာများသို့သူမရောက်ရှိနေသောသင်္ဘောသား ၀ င်ရောက်မှုမပြုရန်သတိပေးခဲ့သည်။ သငျသညျသတိပေးချက်များထဲကယခုဖြစ်၏ ငါသေစေလောက်အင်အားသုံးဖို့ခွင့်ပြုခဲ့ပါပြီ"
The robot opens fire!
An integrated laser blasts out of the robot's right arm as it rolls across the floor and stops in front of the curving desk.
JD eyes the robot as soon as the door opens. Hmmm, parts, perfect he thinks to himself as he begins to move the drone towards it. When it springs to life and issues it's warning he curses and steps back from it into the corner and fires.
"Try not to hit that pressure reducer or those hydraulic couplers, I could use those" he calls out.
I'm guessing you meant Culture rather than Society, so
Identify weaknesses/ special defense/ special offense
He follows JD into the room, spreading out a little to minimize any area of effect attacks, and fires.
Mallura reflects on the icon on the door as she approaches, 'Hmm...some kind of heraldry. This must be the quarters for the big wig on board. Guess that lines up with what the map says anyway.'
When the door slides open and the robot moves into action, the laser blast is answered with a screamed expletive in lashunta. "Blast that tin can, fellas! I've got a burn to address." The captain steps out of the door frame and draws her arc pistol as she takes a few steadying breaths.
Verne adjusts his position at the door to bring himself within line of sight and fires off a shot at the robot.