|
JD watches his teammates attempt to raise the collapsed wall partition, realising with alarm that their attempts to move it will destabilise the building and likely further bury the native lightshark in more rubble. Calling out to halt their misguided movements, the engineer directs the team to prop up one edge of the collapsed partition so that he and Verne can pull the lightshark out from under the heavy barrier to safety.
"Good work, everyone! Now, can we provide some medical attention before we lose them?"
JD will bend down to attend to the unresponsive Drusnok, assessing him with his custom rig. He also akwardly searches the creature over with his hands to check for a pulse or other vital signs. He's a little unsure of where or what to check on the lightshark.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
JD (and the others) can see that the light-shark has suffered an injury to one of its thick lower extremities. A crystalline ooze dried on its carapace near the laceration likely is related to this as well.
The winds seem to be dying down slightly outside the small structure.
"Has anyone got any extra water? It looks like it's dehydrated, may have been here awhile."
JD looks at the trail of crystals all along the backside of the creature, and looks down at his hands after having touched the creature while checking it over. "Ah, shit. Noone touch the crystals.... it seems to have released its bowels"
His eyes go wide looking closer at the crystals. He frantically wipes his hands on his coveralls, unsure if he got any on his skin. "Definately don't eat it either. This looks very similar to some halucinagenic crystals that I've.. uh, heard of before."
Mallura raises an eyebrow and smirks as JD realizes what the crystals are. "Yuo've heard of them, huh? Alright, well moving on from that interesting little detail, perhaps we should get our friend here some water. Did anybody think to bring along some rations or a cantine?"
"It's welcome to some of mine," Verne says, extending a pack of rations. "I have a week's worth. I'm not certain it eats what we eat, though."
"You're correct JD, that does appear to be excrement. Let's try and give the poor fellow some dignity," he says, and extracts his hygeine kit to offer to the creature.
We'd better be off this planet before I need another one.
"I'm not sure how injured the lightshark is. I can attempt to stablize it if need be. The telepathic link took a bit out of me, but I think I can manage it if I focus."
JD will accept the water in the rations from Verne. He brings the bottle near the creature's terrifying mouth and tries to help it drink.
Jarix is not much use with with the light shark, so he keeps a watch for trouble.
|
|
JD provides water and medical attention to the lightshark along with Verne's assistance. Within a few moments, the native's pupil-less black eyes have snapped open and it begins making a sussurating noise along with a few faint glowing white pulses around its body.
"Ah, good! They're waking up!" Mallura kneels a few feet away from the lightshark and reaches out to speak with them telepathically.
"Whoa there, friend! Take it slow. My name is Miss Barb, and my friends and I are here to help. We met your people in the village a short while ago, and they told us we might find you out here. They're very worried about you. We're heading out to the Square Space to see if we can find some medicine to help with the Light Pop, but you should head back home. Can you tell me your name?"
|
|
The lightshark flashes bright white as the captain makes contact with it. Its thick legs straighten reflexively as the sussurations are replaced with a weird humming.
The lightshark attempts to rise from its prone position, a clumsy act made worse by the open wound on its left lower extremity.
"Oh, good. It wants to go home," Mallura tells the crew, "Though it wants help getting back across the bridge. Just a sec. I'm going to ask it to let me heal it." Mallura pulls out a healing serum and offers it to the Hunter.
"I am glad to hear that you mean to go home, but you are still hurt. Here, please take this. It will help heal some of your wounds. Then I will help you back across the bridge."
I think we left the rope across the bridge. It's probably tied off to the buggy on the other side.
|
|
Jarix brought the titanium cable across the bridge when he first crossed and tied it off on the far side. It is tied off to the exploration buggy on the other side.
The Hunter flashes red initially as Mal injects him with the hypo-spray, then floods a light blue colour. It still seems to not be placing full weight on its left leg.
Outside the shelter, the winds have died down somewhat, but when you return to the bridge, you can feel that the vortex of the storm seems to be centred here; the winds are just as gale-force as they were when you originally crossed.
"Jarix, would mind escorting our friend here across the bridge? You seemed rather capable the when we crossed the bridge coming this way."
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
"I'll wait here and rest, I've been zapped enough for awhile" He falls to a seated position against the outter wall with a heavy sigh. "While you're all gone I'll clean up these crystals so no one is contaminated"
|
|
Jarix escorts the Hunter to the far side of the bridge to the exploration buggy. The winds howl as electromagnetic clouds swirl around them, but the ghost operative safely guides the drusnock without injury through the worst of the storm.
The drusnock shuffles off past the exploration buggy without a look back. Jarix turns and returns.
The operative suffers two painful jolts on the way back across the bridge, but keeps his sure footing and returns (largely) unscathed bearing new treasures.
Jarix helps get the land-shark back across the bridge then makes the return trip to his companions. "He was grateful for the help." He shows them the items.
"It seems you've acquired some new possessions since we last saw you, Jarix," Verne remarks. "A ring of resistance, a trailblazer fusion seal, and an aeon stone? That lightshark must have been quite grateful. I'm not quite sure what the fourth artifact is..."
"Well done, Jarix," Mallura says as the operative comes back under the cover of the building. "Now, let's get some quick rest and we'll head on toward the colony."
Mallura finds a spot with a good windbreak and takes a seat for a quick rest.
"Verne, that fusion seal. What does it do? I mostly sold armor and armor upgrades at Estex, so I wasn't really trained in under our weapons division."
While Jarix was gone JD swept all the crystals into the discarded ration container and set it aside his backpack, and returns to his seated position against the wall.
He motions for the drone to come to him and has a look at the damage it sustained crossing the bridge. He sets to repairing it with the tools in his custom rig, assuring the drone in common that it will buff right out.
While he works he sits quietly and listens to the others. His eyes, however, often drift back to the bag of garbage that he intents to dispose of.
Once per day, a mechanic can take 10 minutes to repair his drone, which then recovers 10% of its Hit Point maximum. Additionally, any time a mechanic takes a 10-minute rest and spends a Resolve Point to recover his Stamina Points, he can also choose to repair his drone as part of that same time period. This is an exception to the normal rule that you cannot perform any tasks while taking a 10-minute rest to recover your Stamina Points. Also now that it's hidden in boring rules quotes, how many crystals should I add to my inventory?
|
|
mk 1 ring of resistance: This ring grants you magic protection against attacks and effects to which you are particularly vulnerable. You gain an enhancement bonus to saving throws with your lowest base saving throw bonus. If two or three of your base saving throw bonuses are tied for lowest value, you select which category gains this bonus when you first put on the ring, and this choice does not change unless a different base saving throw bonus later becomes your lowest bonus. The bonus is determined by the model of the ring of resistance.
trailblazer fusion seal (4th): A weapon with the trailblazer fusion manages to alter the nature of its attacks to overcome the penalties of some natural environmental effects. Its attacks ignore the cover provided by bogs and the cover creatures submerged at least chest deep in water receive from attacks made from the surface. Fire damage dealt by the weapon to underwater targets does half normal damage (rather than the normal one-quarter), and other attacks made underwater deal full damage (rather than the normal half damage). Additionally, ranged attack rolls with the weapon don’t take a penalty due to the effects of storms, strong and severe winds, or windstorms. It can even be used to make ranged attacks in severe storms as if they were typical storms and in hurricane-force winds as if they were strong winds. A fusion seal affects only weapons of a given level or less, as noted in parentheses after the name of the fusion seal. Removing a fusion seal and/or transferring it to a new weapon takes only 1 minute and does not require any specific skill training, but the fusion doesn’t function until the seal has been in place on a weapon for 24 hours.
aeon stone: Aeon stones are magic gemstones that orbit your head (or the nearest equivalent of a head, for species that lack heads) and grant you a constant magic effect. They do not count toward your worn magic item limit, and there’s no limit to the number you can have orbiting you. They are most common in the Azlanti Star Empire, which also has unique ways of using such stones, but the most common types of aeon stones can be found in magic shops in many major settlements. Aeon stones are categorised by their shape and color, with all stones of the same shape and color having the same magic abilities. Placing an aeon stone in orbit around your head is a standard action, and removing it is a move action. An aeon stone must be in orbit for you to benefit from its abilities. The stone orbits at a distance of 3 inches to 3 feet, as you prefer, but always outside any armor or helmet you wear. An orbiting aeon stone has an Armor Class equal to 12 + your character level, and it can be attacked directly or even grappled (a successful grapple check plucks the stone out of its orbit and into the attacker’s hand). Most aeon stones (including all those presented here) are capable of glowing with a bright light. As a standard action, you can activate or deactivate the illumination of an aeon stone, which glows brightly enough to increase the light level in your square by one step.
None of you have ever seen an aeon stone before, nor have you ever heard of one of the colour or shape that Jarix has orbiting his head.
Jarix is resting as well.
Verne provides further detail about the three magic artifacts.
"...the stone in particular is...remarkable." Verne concludes. "We ought to ask the drusnock where they found it. Perhaps there are more. Jarix, I would very much like to study the stone when we have returned from our mission."
In concluding his explanation, Verne's awareness turns to the fatigue that's seeped into his endoskeleton. He surveys the others resting and takes a seat himself, closing his eyes in a semi-meditative state.
"I know, right? It's like I have my own moon."
"Yeah, but what's it do?"
|
|
The electromagnetic winds settle as the crew rest within the blasted bunker. After a healthy breather, the courageous amongst you briefly scout in the direction of your march, finding the outlines of a deep box-shaped trench dug into the ground surrounding a pre-fabricated modular compound. The scouring winds have chiseled away at the high-density plasti-form moulded into spherical 20-30 ft high rooms connected by 15 ft high tubular passages, but has yet to obliterate the brand of AbadarCorp stamped clearly on the external walls. A larger spherical chamber, 30 ft high and 50 ft across, stands to the right of the compound within the square-shaped trench and you can see another larger chamber within the centre of the compound. A single door rests slightly ajar below a barely-visible AbadarCorp insignia.
JD drags himself to his feet and collects his backpack, turning his back to the group and playing with the various pockets for a moment before throwing it on. He feels for his pistol in it's holster instinctively and steps back out into the wind with a scowl.
He scans the compound ahead. "A square space"
He turns to the captain to brief her.
"The trench around the outside edge looks like it could be part of an electromagnetic sheild. We should be safe from the storm once we pass through it. Although Verne, you may not enjoy the sensation"
"I'll go knock. See if anyone is home."
Jarix walks up to the door stopping just in front of it and looks for any potential security precautions. He looks at the ground just in front of the door. He looks for cameras above the door and finally inspects the door itself. After that he tries to open it. If locked, he attempts to gain access anyway.
|
|
Jarix walks up to the compound, realising that the heavy blast door rests half-open, the mechanism that closes the door obviously broken. Nothing stands out on the ground leading up to the building apart from the narrow and deep trench (that's quite easy to step over). Peering into the room, Jarix sees no life forms or movement. Debris litters the floor and it appears that the floor paneling has been ripped up in several areas, revealing the same ground as the exterior. The blast doors to the left and right remain securely closed.
Don't let the familiarity make you complacent, Jar. Jarix quickly scans the room and checks the (1= Left, 2= Right) door.
"The trench around the outside edge looks like it could be part of an electromagnetic sheild. We should be safe from the storm once we pass through it. Although Verne, you may not enjoy the sensation"
"I can't imagine I would," Verne replies to JD. "Although given the state of the compound, I don't believe it's functional."
He scans the compound ahead. "A square space"
"The drusnock are a literal sort, aren't they," Verne quips as he comes up alongside Jarix, weapon drawn, to take a look inside the half-open door.
|
|
As Verne crosses the trench, he experiences the briefest of temporary disassociations, an unpleasant sensation that suggests that, no matter the compound's derelict state, the power is still on. Verne enters the room and finds Jarix fiddling with some wires in a wall panel next to a locked blast door.
JD draws his pistol. He looks down at the weathered custom paintwork, once bright and shiny orange and black tiger stripes, now faded with time. The paint on each edge and contour worn thin, exposing the gunmetal grey underneath from repeated handling and contact with the holster. He hefts the reliable old weapon momentarily and marvels that despite the round count, it has only been fired once in anger. The familiar grip in his hand reassures him as he makes the short journey across the trench to the open door.
When he reaches Verne, he quietly asks "How was that?
The drone follows a few feet behind, it's iris glowing a brownish colour. As it passes through the barrier the colour drains from it's iris and it lowers briefly on it's air cushion before shaking itself back to alertness and carrying on.
|
|
JD and Sh-Ux enter the somewhat-deconstructed room with trepidation and (at least one weapon readied).
Mayhem strides into the room with his rifle powered up and held at the ready in both hands. He grins eerily. "Need something blown up? I've got a grenade or two on me."
As Verne explains the details of the various items the Hunter gave Jarix as thanks for the crew's aid, Mallura looks around her companions. "Let's see, I think JD or Verne would probably benefit most from that ring. I'll allow the two of you to make the decision about which of you takes it. Jared, I think that stone looks right floating around your head, not that I have any idea what it does other than that. And as for that fusion, well if I'm not mistaken, it seems like it's made for weapons a bit more advanced that what we've got, so let's just hold onto that for a bit." With that sorted out, Mallura joins the others as they move on toward the AbadarCorp complex.
As the crew crests the hill and spies the complex, Mallura pulls out her comm unit and snaps a few pictures. "Gotta keep good records for the boss, right?" she tells her crew with a wink.
Mallura moves in behind the crew and immediately begins looking out for signs of danger. "The Elder mentioned something about this place shooting fire at intruders. Sounds like some kind of trap or security system to me. Keep your eyes peeled."
JD looks around the inside of the domed entryway.
"Nice to see AbadarCorp left these colonists with the finest prefab disposable shelters." He mutters sarcastically to no one in particular. "Same old primer grey walls. No wonder they're all gone"
"Let's see if these doors are also the same old, same old" He approaches the door Jarix is investigating "May I?"
|
|
Mallura strides into the entrance chamber of the compound, taking in the vandalised panels and the air of decrepitude. JD comes over to Jarix's side, where the operative efficiently works to circumvent the blast door lock on the left door. Coming closer, the mechanic spies a strangely translucent panel camouflaged in the wall just above the blast door. It takes JD a moment...
Before JD can shout out a warning, a standard laser automation folds out from the wall directly opposite the main entrance, rotating on a swivel and firing on the crew members. Seconds later, a blaring claxon sounds out.
A blinding barrage of laser-fire explodes the small barrel-shaped drone with the bright eye. Metal pieces fly in all directions at the explosion, leaving little more than a smoking dark stain on the ground where Sh-Ux once stood.
A security camera in the ceiling swivels into motion, a small green light indicating its active status.
"Motion sensor!" The cry comes just a moment to late.
JD's custom rig chirps, and a familiar voice emerges. "καλή μαλάκα δουλειάς
That one won't buff out, sorry old friend
JD freezes in place, afraid to draw the massive blast that destroyed his companion.
"SH#%!!!" Mallura shouts as Sh-Ux is destroyed by the laser. "We need to shut that thing down. JD, sorry to put you to work after Sh-Ux got wrecked, but let's get to work." The captain pulls out her engineering kit and works on disabling the motion sensors.
Jarix tries to help Mallura disable the blaster trap before it fires again.
If there is an access panel where JD is standing, he will assist with attempting to disable the defence system.
He will glance around the room as well to see if he can identify another sensor over the door to the left as well.
|
|
Lih and Nat rush into the room as the alarm continues to sound out. Mal races over to Jarix and short-circuits the motion sensor device over the blast door with Jarix's boost. JD spins around and, noting a similar panel above the other door, dashes across the room. The automated laser mount follows his motion but does not fire again.
Suddenly something chokes off the alarm. Static crackles as an intercom pops to life. A strangely-resonant voice reverberates electronically from the walls. “So, it seems I have uninvited guests intruding upon my solitude. You are trespassing, you know." The intercom crackles off, then back on again, as if something was being considered. "No, I am not interested in your company. Please leave."
JD stares up at the second motion sensor panel and then glances back at his companions to ask for assistance a boost.
Verne lightly places his hand on JD's shoulder. "I'm sorry about your drone."
In response to the disembodied voice, Verne responds, "Who are you?" The android takes a quick glance around the room for any other danger, then turns back to aid his companion.
JD accesses the 2nd control panel with a rapid flurry of determined button sequences. Without pause he walks to the center of the room and scoops up the blackened azimuth lazer pistol from the debris and stares into the now active camera.
He's been weakened, anxious, wind beaten, zapped by numerous lightning strikes, and now his oldest companion has been scattered all over the room. He seems upset for some reason.
"Listen, κώλος, we are representatives of the rightful owners of this settlement. You are the tresspasser and we are not concerned if you are interested in our company or not."