Xyzic discovers that Gunnar was not as injured as he believed as his magic accomplishes nothing
Chetna's body fights off the digestive enzymes. She cracks one of the birds on the head with her knife. Gunnar misses the flighty stonegulls with his doshko. His body cannot yet stop the digestive processes [ooc](Fort saves continue each round until you roll well enough). However, he does feel buoyed by Xenal's encouragement.
The birds continue to assault the buggy, failing to reach any flesh this time. One bird breaks off and chases after Faraeon.
Combat! Round 4. Bold may act.
Birds (yellow) 4 (Get'em)
Birds (blue) 5-8 (-2 hp)
--Round--
Gunnz
Xyzic
Gunnar (19|27) (Fortitude vs. Acid)
Faraeon (20|28)
Chetna (15|22)
Xenal
Chetna scratches the gull on its way to Faraeon, who then picks it off. She slashes at another as it sticks its head into the buggy.
Gunnar's immune system finally manages to neutralize the bone-digesting enzymes, and he repays the stonegulls by smashing one of them to a pulpy mess of shell and entrails. Xenal strikes down one as well. Gunnz zaps her target out of the air.
The last bird thrusts its head through the sunroof. It nearly stabs Chetna in the neck, but it strikes her clavicle instead. Unfortunately, the digestive enzymes enter her system again and begin to melt her collar bone.
Combat! Round 5. Bold may act.
Birds (blue) 8 (-3 hp) (Get'em)
--Round--
Gunnz
Xyzic
Gunnar (18|27)
Faraeon (20|28)
Chetna (13|22) (Fortitude vs. Acid)
Xenal
Gunnar destroys the last of the aggressive stonegulls with a powerful swing. Once you are sure that there are no more of the birds around, you exit the buggy. The wind whips around you as you sit on the side of the bleak ravine, waiting for the sensor to finish its cycle.
When the cycle finishes, Dr. Montessi calls in over the comms, "I'm not sure what we're getting here. Can you try to calibrate the sensor again to see if it's an anomaly?"
Gunnz
Xyzic
Gunnar (18|27)
Faraeon (20|28)
Chetna (12|22) (Fortitude vs. Acid DC 11)
Xenal
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Faraeon swipes the sweat from his brow as the last of the gulls falls to the ground. "Nice work, folks! Pity the poor things had to go like that, but you know. Sometimes ya gotta play rough!"
He holds a finger to the comms receiver in his ear as Dr. Montessi comes over and tells the team that the sensor needs recalibrating. Turning to the rest of the team, he shrugs, "Guess it's obvious I'm no computer whiz. Somebody else wanna take a whack at it?"
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Gunnz replies to Dr Montessi "There is something odd with your equipment. The stonegulls attacked us when it was turned on. Do you think we can adjust the frequencies so we don't disturb them at all?"
She thinks for a moment.
"This might explain what happened to your earlier equipment too."
Still, she is more than happy to try and calibrate it again.
"The rest of you keep an eye out for more gulls, and if they head in this direction, see if you can pick them off from long range."
While Gunnz climbs to the top of the tower and makes a few adjustments on the scanner, Xenal encourages his comrades, especially Chetna. After a moment, she feels a bit better.
Fifteen minutes later, the scanning cycle completes. "Good work," Dr. Montessi says through the comms. "Whatever you did seems to have cleared up the interference. Head on to the next tower location."
Next stop on the map is the windy cliffs.
Gunnz
Xyzic
Gunnar (18|27)<
Faraeon (20|28)
Chetna (18|22)<
Xenal
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Gunnz revs up the buggy.
"Let's see if we can give this baby some airtime!"
Now, it's not as if she would go out of her way to hit the odd bump. Really, the terrain is pretty tough. And it is not like she casts the odd envious glance at the enercycle doing its own jumps, which it is a little more built for. Just saying....
Chetna makes a small mistake identifying a landmark but quickly corrects herself.
You arrive at the cliff and find the winds to be incredibly strong. They would pose a difficulty to flying and will make erecting the tower a challenge.
The ground here is a strange field of uniform shallow depressions, each about 10 feet long, 5 feet wide, and about 1-1/2 feet deep. At scattered intervals throughout this strange geological feature, the shallow depressions are replaced with long, low, mounds equal in size to the depressions, but rising about 1-1/2 feet above the ground.
It's a little rough for Gunnz to get the tower assembled in the heavy winds, but she manages to do it, even as her companions abandon her to inspect the weird scars and mounds in the ground all over the cliff.
The cause of the strange ground feature baffle even the xenobiologists of the group . The holes look like someone took a humanoid-sized melon baller to the calcium-dense cliff every fifteen feet or so across a broad spread. The mounds look to be the opposite of the holes: small domes rising out of the ground. There are only a handful of mounds in view, and they take the place of where a hole should be in the pattern.
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Gunnz eyes up the structure warily.
"The rest of you keep your eyes out for more birds, although maybe they won't fly in this weather..."
She takes her time making sure the computer is set up right.
"Don't want to have to do this again"
And then jumps down with finesse.
"Bet I can beat you to the next tower, even in that clunky buggy."
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While the main team works on the tower, Kip wanders off to inspect the depressions, but even he remains vexed by the strange formations.
Faraeon helps keep the tower stable while Ginnz works up top. He laughs when Xyzic makes his bet, and takes him up on the bid. ”That’s exactly how it works, Xyzic! Now let’s see, if you’re betting it’ll be worms, and Xenal is going with some kinda burrowing mammal, I’m gonna bet it’s bugs! Lots of bugs.”
Midway through running the scan, a powerful gust of wind washes over the cliff side. Gunnz is knocked forcefully against the scant safety railing on the top of the tower but manages to grab hold of the rail before tumbling over.
Once the , Dr. Montessi calls over the communication units, "Data looks good. One more to go."
As Gunnz prepares to jump down, an even more powerful gust of wind blows across the cliff.
Faraeon stumbles back due to the power of the gust, coming to a stop with his foot a mere inch from one of the holes. Xenal and Xyzic are knocked off of their perches at the mid-point of the tower, receiving some bruises. Gunnz, however, manages to keep her grip on the ladder and make it down to the ground.
Chetna braces herself against the wind and does not move. Unfortunately, Gunnar finds the wind more powerful than his sturdy dwarven body can handle and stumbles backwards. His foot slips into a hole.
*SNAP!*
Gunnar manages to pull his foot out of the hole in time, standing with one leg in the air over a now sealed stone dome.
The winds calm down after this. Next stop: the dry riverbed.
Pilot (Buggy):
Pilot (Enercycle):
Navigator(s):
3 hrs, 45 minutes
Gunnz
Xyzic (5|12)
Gunnar (18|27)<
Faraeon
Chetna (18|22)<
Xenal (19|25)
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"Oh... wow... so they are not mouths or traps.." says Gunnz, fascinated in a morbid kind of a way.
She looks around for a rock to drop into another hole to see if that also snaps shut around it.
"I can't believe they didn't warn us about these."
Still, she jumps back into the buggy.
"One last tower and then we go see that downed spaceship, eh?" she asks, revving the engine in a dramatic manner.
"Vrroooommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm" goes the buggy.
"Wheeeee" squeals Gunnz.
No idea what her passengers say, but I suspect it might be along the lines of "How many can that cycle hold again? "
The hole snaps shut when Gunnz drops the rock into it.
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"Whoa! Somebody's hungry," Faraeon shouts as the hole snaps shut over Chetna's protein bar. "I guess that's a wash, Xyzic! We were both wrong. Tell ya what, though, I'll take you up on that bet. Except, I'll say we see something completely different from the stuff we've seen before! Man, exploring new worlds is fun!"
Faraeon turns on his camera and gets some footage of the "mouths" shutting tight over bits of R2E and other little bits of lichen and such. After getting a few minutes of footage, he hops on board the enercycle with Xyzic, then peels out right behind Gunnz.
You make good time and avoid any mishaps on the way to the dry riverbed. Nobody actually knows what created the terrain feature or if there ever was any water here, that's just how the research team labeled it on the navigation maps.
What you find when you arrive is a long, shallow depression winds across the plateau in this area. Like the rest of the region, it is entirely covered in a gray, shell-like substance. The walls of the riverbed form ten foot tall cliffs, which you will need to climb down (or, alternatively, a daredevil driver could speed off the cliff and try to land the jump ).
As you get closer, you also notice two large, green-skinned quadruped with a flame-colored crest and massive bony projections breaking up the stone floor of the riverbed.
You realize that you could try to jump over or onto one or both of the creatures, if you really wanted to and were really good pilots. Of course, you also realize that this would harm the creatures and make them really mad.
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"So. Dough, anyway, he told me about some really odd critters. I think he was describing these once. They are called crest-eaters. Native of kasath, and often raised as pets by kasathas. So what are they doing here?"
"The bad news... they dissolve bones with acid. Maybe why they like this place. Let's get this buggy down there!"
Gunnz guns it and drives the buggy off of the cliff. She and her three passengers eperience a moment of weightlessness as they sail through the air over one of the crest-eaters and over the crater behind it.
The crest-eater makes a startled noise as the buggy bounces its landing (safely if terrifyingly to the unexpecting).