Katheryn's hands began to shake before she shook her head and snapped herself out of it!
"Go away!" She declared before taking another shot.
Sprig felt his kobold instincts kick in, ones that had saved his hide more than once... It was time to run!
Dropping his empty pistol, he scrabbles along the floor looking for somewhere to hide until things sorted themselves out.
ghost -39
Despite Bas and Sprig turning tail and running, the remaining party members put up a solid fight against the incorporeal enemy, all of them striking to varying degrees of effectiveness. Ronan's ethereal weapon strikes especially deeply.
The ghost floats forward, phasing it's hand through Saraon and filling him with the crushing pain of mortality for 13 damage!
Saraon cries out like a wounded animal under the spirit's assault, but wills his body to keep moving and swinging his sword!
Ronan grits his teeth. That blow to Saraon looked painful. He'd definitely have to heal him up after this. And Kat was sticking around, but Bas and Sprig had unfortunately been frightened away. He didn't blame them. Such a specter was a terror to behold! He snaps his finger once more and a devastating crackle of electricity arcs across the room. The weapon of pure force swings as well, but its aim is thrown off-kilter compared to its previous devastation. But it wasn't done yet--not by a long shot!
Not by a long shot indeed, as if on que Katheryn calmed her breathing and let off a shot at the creature a simple smirk upon her lips.
Kat lines up a perfect shot, firing a bullet right through the smoking bullet hole in the ghost's head.
The spectral figure wails for a last time before dissipating!
The thunderous retort from Kat's gun surprises Ronan, mostly for its sheer destructive capacity. He starts, whirling around to see the smoke unspooling from her barrel, and then nods his head smiling. He still feels the mild connection to a bit of control of electricity around him, but it takes only a few moments before the Saint sword disappears.
"Quite the shot, Ms. McHaven," Ronan says. "Hopefully that puts an end to the troubles we're facin' for at least a bit."
He starts walking towards the room so that he can acquire the override code and then looks back at Kat and Saraon. "Bas and Sprig can't have gotten too far. I'll get the code if'n y'all wanna check on 'em."
"Good shot, indeed, Katheryn," Saraon comments. He turns to go after Bas and Sprig.
"Bas? Sprig?" he calls. "The ghost has been laid to rest!"
Sprig caught his breath, and walked back to the group after hearing them call out to him. It was probably safer to move in a group anyway... "Phew, that was quite a scare! It's been awhile since Ah felt the need t' run like that! You remember th' last time Bas?"
The kobold glances over to his longtime companion. "We were ran afoul of a bunch of tribal folk, did something they didn't quite like and we decided to get out while the gettin' was good. Don't 'member what exactly we did though."
He let out a nervous chuckle, hoping to diffuse whatever tension he might still be feeling.
"Hmmm," Ronan says, his face aglow as he taps away at the terminal before him. "Now which tribe dj'all piss off?" He chuckles as he asks the question, happy to join in the release of tension (and hoping that the terminal didn't explode in his face).
Ronan walks into the room, seeing a rather grisly sight. A skeleton sits slumped at the desk, a hole clearly visible in it's forehead. An ancient weapon sits in one of it's hands. The battery still emits a soft glow, indicating that it still very well may have some charge left in it.
The room itself feels...wrong. Even though the ghost was destroyed, it lingers here somewhat, gathering strength to reform. It'll take a few days at least with what the party knows of ghosts. Nonetheless, the room is not a pleasant place to be.
The party is able to move the chair occupied by the skeleton before getting to work. Most of the data pathways on the computer seem corrupted, coming back with errors and flashing screens. Ronan is, however, able to find the necessary access code, along with a few other tidbits.
Davin Traznaff, the man on the loudspeaker, was the first volunteer subject for the process of mind suspension. In fact, if what the computer indicates is true, he may have been the only available subject. There are references to events taking place in a region called the Core preventing shipments of supplies and test subjects from reaching the facility. Though most of the entries are corrupted, the dates still exist, showing that they got more and more sporadic until they stopped one day. The last entry is still accessible though,
"I never wanted this. I thought we were doing good work for the betterment of the entire Alliance. I guess I was wrong. Traznaff has been going crazy ever since he put his brain in that damn jar. I've asked him to let me leave, to go home back to Yyi Aelfan. He refused, wouldn't lift the lockdown. I'll never see my family again. I'll never see the forests and the streams and the rain. So I've decided to end it. If I can't leave, I'll go out on my own terms. If anyone reads this...Aethawe help you. I hope the stars are a kinder place when you do. -Assistant Director Enniawin Tellenthar"
"Hmmm," Ronan says, his face aglow as he taps away at the terminal before him. "Now which tribe dj'all piss off?" He chuckles as he asks the question, happy to join in the release of tension (and hoping that the terminal didn't explode in his face).
"That Steel tree tribe i think it was they lived in this hallow with all those metal trees that look like towers everywhere....
He shrugged sheepishly and retrieved his bardiche trying not to look too embaressed."It that damned teenager had just left me alone.. Im still sorry i hit him like that boss. You would think i would get used to people making faces at my scars by this point..."
He said quietly.
Saraon tries to remember if Aethawe is one of the Old Gods.
Ronan encounters the skeleton and tilts his head to the side. "Poor thing," he says. "We should put the remains to proper rest when we leave. Mizz..." he gets to the message, feeling his skin crawl the longer he stays in the room. "Mizz Tellenthar." Fingers clacking away, he reads through the data and tries to make sense of it. Some made immediate sense. They would probably have to fight Traznaff, one way or another, in whatever form his suspended mind or brain in a jar took.
He reads the messages allowed to the others and summarizes his understanding. "Well, I got the access code Traznaff wanted to supposedly undo the lockdown. So we can trace our steps back if'n y'all are right n' ready. Hard to say what we'll find on the other side, though. Might s'well prepare fore I type this in over there."
The tech-laden shaman shudders and encourages Bas and Saraon to once more take point winding their way back the way they came through the complex, until they get to the waiting screen. He pauses before putting the code in.
"Y'all wanna ask anything afore we head in, or prepare? You heard what I read."
Ronan picks up the weapon, studying it's design and realizes fairly quickly that this is a laser pistol, an uncommon but not unheard-of weapon. With an exceptional recollection on how ghosts work as well as access to the note she left, he thinks there are one or two methods that could be used. The first would be to perform some sort of burial ritual on the bones. While it likely wouldn't be of the religion she followed in life it's better than nothing. Given her ghost's connection to the gun, however, another method could be to fuse her spirit to the weapon, allowing her a moment of lucidity to decide for herself what to do. That ritual would be harder and more time-consuming though.
The rest of the terms are unfamiliar to him, though Saraon recalls his mother telling stories to him as a boy of an elven goddess, long-dead, name Illethawe. If nothing else, the name is somewhat familiar.
Katheryn smirked as she place her musket on her should. "Ace shooten'indeed" She half bragged.
However as upon seeing the remains she signed. "Aye, I been havin' enough of this place." Katheryn said to Ronan with a nod, she had joined on a whim oddly enough and we heavily questioning if she should remain. Yet as she thought about it, this group was better than the gang she had been apart of who left her for dead.
Ronan's question snapped her out of her own head and she just shrugged swinging her musket off her shoulder. "Just go get me a clear shot."
Sprig grinned at the ex-bandit. "Ah don't blame yew Bas, that punk was looking for a fight and ya gave it to him. Just a shame it was th' chief's son!"
The kobold looked puzzled at Ronan's summary. "You'd think if this Director feller was behind the lockdown in the first place, he'd have no problem fixing th' problem himself. Been down here too long Ah suppose, probably some kinda mines madness."
"Aethawe...he may have been talking of Illethawe...maybe he was elfkin of some kind," Saraon wonders aloud.
He nods at Sprig's assessment.
"He seemed to be repeating himself and thinking he was in different times mid-conversation. He may have known how to fix the problem himself once...or even periodically...but never long enough to act on that knowledge. And given he appears to be a disembodied mind now, he may simply not be able to fix it because he no longer has hands..."
Elven deities weren't particularly Ronan's specialty, so he's glad to have a local expert on the subject. On the other hand, this ancient tech is something he's quite keen on. "This here laser pistol could come in handy, I reckon. It's a bit less sheer destruction compared to yer pistol, Kat, but you can fire through anythin' you can see through n' have to reload a bit less. Prolly belonged to the victim. I could use it instead to try to put her ta permanent rest. Might be nice."
He concurs with the others. "S'likely his mind has faded like any old-timer. Know how some silver-hairs jes don' seem t'know who or where they are at a certain point? Might be like that, but ro-bo-tic. Might be list'nen now."
Ronan enters the code.
As Ronan entered the code, Katheryn steadied herself, ready to shoot if anything aggressive tried to attack.
The first door slides open as the party walks in, closing behind them. This small hallway is in the same state of disrepair as the rest of the complex, and another set of doors stands closed in front of them. A smooth voice sounds within the chamber, "Decontamination protocol intiated."
Nothing happens, save for a few vents seemingly wheezing, trying to fill a room with a substance that may no longer exist.
The next doors open, and the party ventures into the room beyond.
If the rest of the facility was in disarray, this room is in absolute chaos. Surprisingly verdant growth spills out of a room to the north, while broken machinery litters the floor. Boxes lie scattered around, spare parts and brittle papers spilling out of them.
Most importantly, standing in the middle of the room is...something. It seems like a robot at first glance, spindly mechanical legs and eight metal tendrils extending from it's back, outfitted with a dizzying array of apparatuses. The center is a clear tank though, with a brain floating inside it.
One of the tendrils extends, and a light begins to shine. Within a few moments, it's creating a translucent image of a man. He's dressed strangely, in a long white coat made of an unfamiliar material with what must be cybernetic implants taking up almost half of his body. The projection moves jerkily as the voice comes over the intercomm, "Ah, the new test subjects I had requested from the Board. You're late! Disgracefully so! What do you have to explain this? Well? I haven't got all day, lots of work to catch up on."
Saraon shakes his head sadly.
"Why are we late, Davin? The world ended. No one knows of this place, let alone that you are here, and only ghosts remember your name."
"Right so. We're no test subjects, Director Traznaff. We're the supposed luddites that you asked to lift the emergency lockdown. As I recall, you promised a reward if we did that. Research Station Mu-9-Alpha has been shut down for many years now, and the Alliance is all gone, so no one is waiting for progress reports on yer mind suspension or yer combat cyberization."
"A reward? A reward?!?"
The image gets even jerkier, an expression of anger on it's barely comprehensible face, "Oh, you'll get a reward. How would you like for me to saw off those pretty little arms and replace them with state-of-the-art cybernetics. I promise it won't hurt much!"
With that, the mechanical tendrils unfold from it's back in all their power, an array of saws, technological guns, and other, more esoteric devices pointed right at the party.
Davin Traznaff, it seems, may have lost what remains of his mind.
He extends a tendril towards the area to the north and a set of ancient doors slide open, two rust-risen tumbling out with hate in their mechanical eyes.
As the rust-risen regain their footing, he raises a tendril and fires a laser from the tip of it at Kat! She manages to avoid it, however, quick reflexes allowing her to easily dodge.
Whenever you roll for initiative, you can roll twice and take either result. At 7th level, you can always act in the surprise round, but if you fail to notice the ambush, you act last, regardless of your initiative result (you act in the normal order in following rounds). At 11th level, you can roll for initiative three times and take any one of the results.
Sprig wasn't pleased to see another robot, they always seemed to be nothing but trouble! "Wa-hell, Whatever this junk heap is, it certainly wasn't what Ah was expectin'. Watch yerselves! Things are about to get dusty!"
The kobold spreads his arms wide, chanting a few verses of draconic song as rock began to pour from the ceiling.
"I hate this place." Katheryn sighed as she took aim. "And, I ain't taken that poor excuse of a shot!" She swiftly snapped as she took aim to return the favor.
Saraon chants a droning, Druidic phrase and waves his hand.
"Let the land here remember its old strength!"
And shoots of green begin sprouting up from the cracked floor to wrap around the limbs of the robotic entity!
Kat's shot hits home, dislodging some of the carefully designed circuitry keeping the cybernetic brain alive amplified by a whole bunch of falling rocks! The holographic image glitches and flickers, though the mechanized being still stands, ready to fight.
Saraon's entangling vegetation wraps around the limbs of Davin and one of the rust-risen. The other rust-risen avoids it, and struggles forward through the morass of crumbled stone.
Davin -18
Red -8
Blue -8
"No thank ye, Davin. Looks as though we're at odds, so you're gonna fry."
Ronan snaps his fingers, drawing the final currents of lightning around to strike the mechanical apparatus.
Not keen to bunch up and feeling confident in his ability to defend himself, Ronan moves around the corner into the room and tries to scrutinize the construction of Davin's chassis. Perhaps that spirits of the past knew of some particular defenses--or better yet, weaknesses--that something of this type of scrap possessed.
He moved torwards the rust risen that had somehow managed to avoid the entanglement and attacked it with his bardiche as hard as he could.
Bas cleaves into the rust-risen. His bardiche strikes with deadly power, slicing the thing in two! Ronan’s lightning hits home, shocking the cybernetic brain. Any insight into exactly what this thing is evades him though.
Davin’s projection scowls, ”You all are troublesome.”
First, he gestures towards a metal box behind a desk and it unfolds into a robot, a similar model to the one that the party had fought before.
The projection then points at Ronan with a sneer, and pain explodes through the shaman’s body.
Seconds later, Hezekh, who’d gone outside to keep watch and make sure Gog was still calm barrels back in, having heard the commotion.
Davin -29
Blue -8
Red: frosty
"Looks like yer right on time, Hezekh! Good to have yew with us!" Sprig said with a grin.
With a grunt, He knelt to the floor, starting to draw a magic circle.
Ronan begins screaming as every fiber of his being feels like it is suddenly on fire.
"Why be everythin' here be such a pain?" Katheryn asked as she took aim again only to hear Ronan bust into a scream "Ah shite!"
Saraon advances past Bas to attack Davin directly!
Taking quick stock as he enters, Hezekh advances toward the brain-vat-robot-thing, uttering incantations as he does so. His metal arm begins to crackle with electricity.
Kat's not quite able to hit Davin, the robotic reflexes just a little too fast for her shot. Saraon, too, is stymied by the robotic defenses as his sword clatters off it's armor.
The rust-risen tries to escape from the entangling vines, getting it on it's second try. It's unable to advance towards the party at all.
There is no thought. There is only pain. Dozens of voices crowd Ronan's mind, vying for dominance, for expression. It feels like they're trying to crawl out of his skin, too. Ronan continues screaming, showing surprising lung capacity and muscular fortitude for a man of his apparent age. His eyes bulge slightly, the faintest hint of red capillaries eking across his sclera.
"Ronan! What is he doing to you?!" Saraon calls concernedly.
Through screams, Ronan somehow recognizes the spell. "HOWLING... AGONY..." he strains. "VERY... PAINFUL..."
"I can see that!" Saraon exclaims.
He wasnt sure what the hell that thing was.. but it seemed to be the cause of the screaming agony coming from his ally and that he couldnt stand. He took on big stepp bringing his bardiche back behind him over his head and down... trying to shatter it into peices....
Bas feels like he could've hit it in a vital spot, but doesn't quite manage to. The mechanical abomination seems damaged but still in decent working order.
Davin seems to resist the worst of Ronan's magic.
The robot fires a bolt of crackling electricity at Bas, though it misses. It then advances forward.
Davin uses a blade-equipped tendril to cut away the vegetation before he steps back out of the range of the warriors as the projection lets out a silent laugh. A mechanical tendril and the projection both point at Hezekh as he feels the distinction between his senses start to blur.
Davin -45
Blue -8
Red: frosty
Robot: fine and dandy