Test
The Party has been recruited for a expedition into the Ancient City of Mann by the Order of Restoration, the order believes that under the cities grand library lies a store untapped technology.
Mann is believed by the order to have been the Capital of some great nation, They claim it is the biggest Old World city they know of, perhaps it is for this reason the gods still rain destruction on it.
The City is pounded every day by giant poles of fire that rain down from the sky, They are known as Godrays and are one of the many anomalous phenomenon left behind by the ancients. They pound the city 20 hours of the day, turning the giant steel skeletons of buildings red-hot, and making entering the city impossible as the heat alone will kill most people
All of the party members where recruited by the Order and where told to meet up with an Acolyte in the same location, A Small town a few miles away from MANN. The Town is ran by a Luddite Cult who worship the Godrays as a holy event, and journey to the outskirts of Mann, so that they can bask in the heat of the rays, And so the holy energies can bring all their worries and sins to the surface of their skin, turning it red and letting it all peel away. A Few of the more Zealous ones will journey into the city to be incinerated by the rays, a truly holy act in their eyes.
When you all reach the town, your Journey is cheered on by the cult who believe that should you fail and be destroyed by the rays, your souls will be purified anyhow. After a bit of planning using an old Map the Acolyte has, you journey into the City during the few hours of the day where the rays don't fall. But you find the path you worked out blocked by debris, Roadways blocked by stacks of the horseless carriages the ancients where fond of.
Your party attempted to reroute but the clock was ticking, And when you saw the glow of the first godray of the day fall you knew you had failed, but you found the entrance to one of the Man made tunnels that are all around the city, underground you would be safe from the rays, and that is where the story begins, with the party journeying down the steps into an underground labyrinth, a series of interconnecting tunnels, Just as the world above turns into a glowing hellscape.
Levi slowly takes stock of himself. His breastplate and sword made of a strange metal appear to be in good condition. A deep brown longcoat inappropriate for the warm weather and matching pants make up his wardrobe. He opens and closes his hands.
Good. Nothing out of place. Gauntlets open and close smoothly.
He pulls out a small dull stone and allows it to take orbit around his head to shed some light in the tunnels. Finally, he looks to the others with him.
"Is everyone alright?"
"I am fine, though we cut it a bit close there." the sinister looking man says with a slight lisp.
He draws his gleaming, lightly curved blade in preparation for trouble.
.
You come down a set of concrete stairways into a ruined tiled lobby The alcove lined walls are filled with Ancient machines scorched black, There are a pair of adjoining rooms with the familiar Old common symbol for Bathrooms, And a closed door with the words Security barley visible on a scorched plagued. The Acolyte Speaks.
"That was close, but this might be perfect, The big cities all have tunnels like these, they go all over the city, look."
The Acolyte jumps over a metal barrier in the middle of the lobby and goes up to a pillar that has partially faded colored lines all over it.
"This is a map of the tunnels, This is the most intricate one I've ever seen, But look, If we follow this Red line it'll take us right to the center of the city, where the archives are."
Ken takes out a piece of parchment and jots down a rough map of the labyrinth.
The room starts to grow hot as Ken examines, no matter what it seems like you'll need to go deeper into the tunnels soon anyway, since even the lobby is too close to the rays, and the heat radiating in through the entrance is beyond sweltering. Going past the Barriers will take you deeper into the earth and further away from the Rays.
"Well, no time to waste!" Zach says, and marches off into the indicated direction.
"Right. I agree." Levii follows. His eyes scan all about him, drinking in his surroundings.
You guys journey into deeper into the lobby, down another set of stairs into another lobby, before coming to a pair of tunnel that extends into the darkness both ways. Ken Points down one and leads you that way. The Young Acolyte is a bit of a motor mouth, and spends most of the walk marveling over the tunnels and the city above.
"These tunnels are engineering marvels, We think they must of been used to help people move around, these cities had millions of people in them."
The Tunnels go along for miles, After a good half an hour of walking you come up to another lobby like the first one, it's much the same except for a putrid smell, you don't need to investigate the cause of the smell because it's out in the open on the lobby floor, A Fat oily rat, easily the size of a human toddler, It's body is heavily desiccated and it's flesh and innards have been eviscerated.
I think it dies from natural causes, nothing to be worried about.
Levii approaches the rat and eyes it curiously. He pulls his belt knife and prods it casually.
"Huh. Rodents of unusual size down here." His eyes then snap up and glance around the room for danger.
"Millions!?!" Zach says, incredulous.
"...How many even is that? I've never even needed to count above a few thousand."
"Something ripped the poor little creature apart only a day or two ago. We should be wary of large, territorial beasts down here."
"A million would be as though every part of that thousand was a thousand in of itself." Levii says very matter of factly.
"I can't imagine things living down here for long. The God-Rays keep most living creatures away from the city in general."
Away from the surface of the city. If we can survive the rays here, others things would too. But more importantly, it's easy to imagine a million, you only have to imagine a billion and then divide by a thousand.
"In general...living creatures give uninhabitable places a wide berth outside of the immediate area."
L3VII does not see anything of note
Ken directs you further down the tunnel, As you proceed it becomes more cave like, the walls up to this point have been man made and lined with brick. The only thing indicating this is part of the man made tunnel are the metal tracks on the ground.
PERCEPTION ROLLS: VS 22
As the party moves further into the cave whoever is taking point feels a tug on their ankles as they pull on a thin strand of metal wire, and a long chain covered in tin cans fall from an alcove in the roof, the cans making a loud rattling noise that pierces the silence reverberates down the long straight tunnel.
Levii looks down at the tripwire by his feet and sighs. He readies his blade and stares down the tunnel.
Uhm, That's bad right?
PERCEPTION ROLLS:
No one see's it.
"Everyone stay close." Levii tries to be adjacent to everyone.
L3VII
You hear a hiss from above as a what looks like a Humanoid Rat leaps from the roof onto, L3VII And tries to claw and bite at his face.
His claws scrape pointlessly but is fangs tear through synthetic skin.
The Ratman stands alone within striking range of literally all four of you, His eyes are milky white and pupiless, His skin is hairless and is covered in swollen boils, he is so pale you can see his veins through it, and his belly is distended and his ribcage is showing, and he is foaming at the mouth. He shouts something in a strange language, Anyone who knows Old Common can make out the word for Food.
Zacharia crouches, drawing his blade in one smooth motion and lashing out with a horizontal strike at the rat creature.
The creature is decrepit and the blade shears right though it's body, cutting it right in half, A gout of blood and pungent white pus spouting from his bisected body. It smells foul though no foul then a rotting corpse.
Suddenly you hear more hisses, As down the hallway more rat creatures seem to appear out of no where as they crawl from the walls and poke their heads from the roof. Anyone with low light vision can easily count twenty pairs of white eyes. They are sniffing the air, then they start to all hiss the same old common word for Food.
About six of the creatures leap onto the cavern floor and glare at their next meal, while the others cling to the wall hiss and throw dirt in your general direction.
Let's try murderous command on the nearest creature. DC 16
The Rat at the front of the pack turns on his partner, We'll say it's rat 1 in pair 1, 1 of 1.
The young Ken is Wary of going down the hallway while the walls are crawling with more of the ratpeople, readies an action to attack when they come within his range.
I'm going to move this along.
Initiative Order:
Zacharia & Ken
2nd Pair
Seithgz
3rd Pair
L3VII
1st Pair
There are still Six ratmen each pair spread out about 10 feet from each other, 1 in the first group appears to have turned on his allies, The walls and ceiling are crawling with even more ratmen, who remain where they are, screeching and hissing at the intruders.
.
.
.
.
.
Zacharia
Ken
Seithgz
L3VII
2nd Pair
3rd Pair
1st Pair
I move back 20 ft and shot to the nearest ratman.
The Shot goes wide, over the Rat's head.
Levii whirls his blade around and steps slightly forward.
"Stay back you vermin! Back to your holes!"
Zacharia charges forward, drawing his blade and lashing out in a horizontal cut across the two nearest rat creatures.
Zacharia's blade cuts through them both of the 1st pair, They fall to the ground, Dying. A gush of red/yellow blood exploding from their wounds, the rats on the wall explode into furious hisses and howls at this, so loud it seems to surround you on all sides.
The Other pairs seeing their friends cutdown begin to scurry closer, Their small size making it easy to squeeze in between each other, Claws and fangs dripping a yellow fluid as they pushed their way up to Zacharia and L3VII.
Because Zacharia moved foreword the ones that come to him do not threaten from L3VII But the ones that run at L3VII do provoke attacks of opportunity from him. Unless Zach has reach the small rats that head towards L3VII are able to stay 5ft our of reach from Zach.
The ones that attack Zach swipe at him with their claws.
The first and the second rat get a good swipe on you
The rats despite being bigger then their kin lining the walls, Still seem decrepit and half starved, Their claws brittle and not even fit for slashing, They leave a scratches along your arms that barley even hurt.
None of them will hurt you even if you Fail to AAO each of them.
The first attack barley misses, But the second strikes, The Attack rips through part of the Rat's arm, and it looks like it just about downed him, but he is just alive enough to flail at you with his claws.
"Strike quickly, we must dissuade the pack!" Levii shouts before hacking at the rat monster with his greatsword.
L3VII cuts through the rat, The weak creature falling down dying.
Move + color spray against the group in front of Zacharia.
Zacharia makes an expression of distaste and mutters to himself.
"But it won't be nearly as cool the second time...well, I suppose there's nothing for it." after a second more's thought he brightens. "Ah, I know what will spice it up!"
He moves in to where two more rats are within reach and slashes with his sword once more, reaching a hand toward one of the nearest rats and subsuming it in dark energy.
"Tidal Blade!" he cries, katana slicing the air.
Both rats resist the mesmerizing spray of color, But are blinded just long enough to be cut down by Zach's Blade, the weapon cutting through them both ending them there.
The Rats that line the hallway start to slink back into the walls, Seeing that there will be no surfacer meat today.
Ken
Dashes up to the last Rat, Swinging his fists at it.
And with that Ken knocks his block off, The rat already on the verge of death falls over.
The Rats are a stinking mess, Completely unarmored and unarmed they have no items of value if searched.
Anyone with Low Light Vision or better can see if they look at the walls, Can see that many the other rats have no burrowed away, Rather they seem to be hiding a few feet in their burrows.
At a Glance:
"Let's keep moving before they decide to try their luck again." Levii stands guard at the burrows while the squishier members of group pass before following and taking the lead again.
Once you all start to move along You pass under the burrows, You hear hissing and snarling from all around you, But unless provoked the Rats stay in their holes, Only emerging just as you pass, Running away from you, Snarls and hissing ringing out as they turn on their own dead, going into some kind of feeding frenzy on the corpses.
You continue to move along the tracks, The cavern-like walls occasionally interrupted by ancient masonry from parts of the tunnel that has not crumbled and metal pipes sticking from the walls. Now that you know what to look for, you can easily pick out Burrows that appear in random clusters along the walls ever so often, But if you peer inside they are empty. After a while you come across an area where two tunnels run perpendicular, their tracks running side by side in a wider tunnel before splitting off in separate directions.
The first thing you notice is a Subway Car on it's side up against the wall of the Cavern as if it had been tipped off it's tracks. It's covered in holes and debris, though you can see a faint flickering light through one of the many holes that stands out sharply from what is mostly just darkness.
Ken silently points down the tunnel they need to go, It's the tunnel diagonal from the tunnel you came from, and would require you to get pretty close to the train.
Zacharia does go in for a more thorough examination before moving on.
But the details are lost to the sands in the hourglass...
------------------
"Hold! Look closer...that strange metal shell is inhabited. We should proceed with caution."
You find yourself in the basement of some massive building, it's sweltering and it feels like it's getting hotter.
As the Godrays began to fall you spotted a Multi-story building with massive red crosses placed on it at various locations. As a professional scavenger procurer you recognize this building as one of the Ancient's temples of healing. A great mausoleum to their power, a place where even the poorest beggar could go to be healed, sometimes they have valuable reagents but more importantly they typically have basements, So you fled into the building for release and now find yourself in the basement. Despite it being underground it's as hot as an oven, When you search around for something worth the hassle of coming here you find that part of the basement has collapsed into a lower chamber.
With it being as hot as it is, the idea of a going further under ground where the air may be cool is going to be very appealing.
The Tunnel not just a hole caused by a collapsed floor the structure looks more like an artificial tunnel / You see signs of digging, scrape marks on rocks unusual piles of dirt. Something dug this.
Mia hesitantly looks down the dusty tunnel... Then notices a drop of sweat falling on her hand.
*sigh*
I suppose it is preferable to being cooked alive in a dusty basement...
She rolls her eyes at the sight of dust falling on her fur and sticking to her sweat, but moves on.
You go deeper and the shaft where it ends at a metal door, The door has a small square glass window, If you look through it you see a nearly pitch black room, the only source of light is a purple mushroom. The mushroom's sitting on a table and provides just enough of a glow to partially illuminate a hunched furred figure at the table, who appears to be writing something.
"So it is. I'll take point." Levii approaches the makeshift domicile to peek inside.
"Hello?"