Barlespin fires at Birdfood, but the bolt goes wide and lands beside his head.
The sounds of battle awaken the birds.
Yarkus attacks Eskanii
Kij takes off and attacks Morgan
Rej moves in on Barlespin
Birdfood glares at Eskanii and draws a longsword from beside his throne.
Round 1 - Bold May Act.
Birdfood -42
Ezir
Barlespin (Take 1 damage please)
Morgan
Eskanii
Yarkus
Kij
Rej
Eskanii grunts in surprise as the bird and its master manage to bleed her upon awakening! lost in her rage, she sees a bird departing from the corner of her eye and takes a quick sharp swipe at it... she can't feel the pain from her injuries just yet, and thus she decides to continue her assault on Birdfood. Somehow, she feels much, much larger by now...
Eskanii makes a swipe at the bird as it flies by, but cannot connect.
Ignoring the bird for a moment Eskanii swings her falchion and connects with Birdfood, slashing deeply into the human and reducing him to an unconscious slumped figure on the floor.
Their handler gone the three birds make to fly away into the wilderness.
Is he dead? Tie him up if not. Should we bring him to Severoth or just leave him for his underlings to dispatch?
Ezir starts rifling through his gear with Detect Magic up.
Eskanii grabs Birdfood and puts him on her shoulder, answering Ezir with her giantess voice,
"I am on it!"
Morgan starts looking around for shinies.
What about over here?
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Searching the throneroom you find a box under the throne. Inside you find the things that Birdfood had promised you for taking out Sevroth.
The box contains 234 sp, 188 gp, 11 pp, 4 silverdisks, one battery, a wand of grease (11 charges), a scroll of sound burst, a masterwork hand crossbow with seven +1 bolts, a white access card, and a timeworn fire extinguisher.
Additionally you gather +1 human bane arrows (5), +1 studded leather, +1 composite longbow with 15 arrows, longsword, 12 silverdisks and 109 gp from the corpse.
You make your way through the streets and back to Sevroth at the gatehouse. She greets you warmly seeing that you have her rival's corpse with you. Well, you did as you said. That makes you good in my book. Let me give you a quick rundown of this town.
There is us, the Steel Hawks and we control this territory here at the gate house. You will see our mark around our turf. As for the leader, that is me now thank to you.
The next gang is Redtooth's Raiders led by Redtooth. Redtooth is a female ratfolk who wears her hair in twin braids. You'll know her when you see her. Her turf is to the north-east of ours and you'll see their rat-like mark when pass through there.
Then there is the Smilers. You'll know them by their face markings. They are led by the hobgoblin Morrow and are in the north-west of town.
Lastly there is the Lords of Rust. They are in the north east of Scrapwall and are led by the Scrapmaster. The gang is mostly orcs, androids and ratfolk, but there are all sorts within their ranks.
[b] There used to be another gang called the Helions, but they recently disbanded. I have not heard why. Their leadership all died in a single night as if by some act of an enraged god.
Any questions?
Eskanii nods to Sevroth. "We did something for you, now we need a favor before we proceed to eliminate your next target. Know anything about someone here meddling with the city of Torch's big magic light in the sky? or someone here who would know about that? AND PLEASE DON'T TELL US BIRDFOOD! a friend of a friend might be interested in buying information from us on that... if you do know something, I'd be inclined to kill even more people for you than usual. Or at least kill them harder. HAHAHAHAA!"
A big magic sky light you say? I have seen light form the sky come down within the walls. It seemed to come down somewhere in the east of Scrapwall in the Lords of Rust or Thralls of Hellion's territory. It stopped the same night the Thralls of Hellion lost their leaders.
"Hmm... are you planning to join with the Lords of Rust or go against them? I think we'd like to take a look where that light came down and talk to some people near it. What would you suggest the best way to go about it?"
Just travel over there on foot. You will have to identify yourself as you pass through territories, but you seem to be a likeable lot. You should be fine.
Do you have any wizards in your employ or know of any residing here in town? I'd like to speak with them if possible.
Once the fight is over, Barlespin claims 58 sp, 74 gp, 3 pp, and 4 silverdisks. He also claims the timeworn fire extinguisher, "If no one else minds ..." as well as the +1 crossbow bolts. "I know we have a few of these cards ... perhaps we should spread them out amongst us, if we ever need them when we are separated."
"Is there a good shop here, for us to replenish our supplies?" He looks appraisingly at the fire extinguisher.
We have no shops here in Scrapwall. Everyone steals, scavenges of trades among themselves. What do you need?
Barlespin tightens the clasp in his backpack. "I can tinker together some more crossbow bolts from scrap, I am sure. I'm no priest of Abadar, but the people in this town might want to consider the merits of a more market-based system." He nods toward Ezir. "What of spellcraft? Is there anyone who sells such services?"
Once the group is alone, he says to the others, "I think we should investigate these other areas, before heading straight for the Lords of Rust. I would in particular think we want to find out more about what happened to these Hellions ..."
"Agreed! let's start with their immediate neighbour here. Let's go!"
"I need some time to create more bullets for my pistols!"
Morgan starts to create paper cartridges.
I'm looking to see if anyone in amenable to a spellbook trade. Any wizard worth their salt should have some spells I need and need some spells I have.
After taking some time to get yourselves re-armed and resupplied as best you can you venture over the the territory previously held by the Thralls of Hellion.
You are almost there when a group of three small humanoid rats come around a corner. The ratfolk are dressed in scraps of leather and furs and carry daggers at their hips and light crossbow in their hands. These weapons look to be cobbled together from scrap also.
Redtooth would like to meet you. Will you follow us?
"Yes. Yes we will. I like ratfolk!"
Barlespin follows the ratfolk, his own hand resting on his crossbow. He carefully observes the surroundings, should a rapid escape from this area be required.
Morgan follows others.
Ezir sighs.
As you asked nicely, we will accompany you, though any overt threats will be met with an overwhelming response.
You follow the ratfolk. They move to a hole in the wall about 4 feet high and dart inside. The markings on the wall show the insignia that was explained to you as Redtooth's Raider's mark. The air is thick with odours, although they are not unpleasant they are potent.
Squeezing and following!
Barlespin moves easily through the small tunnels behind Eskanii.
Morgan follows.
Ezir looks down at her robes and back at the corridor she's about to stoop through and mutters to herself. Oh, you can enlarge, but can you reduce... She follows the group through the tunnel.
Eskanii makes conversation with the nearest ratfolk, "How long has Redtooth been the leader here? how big is your gang? Ratfolk only or do you have other member races as well?"
The ratfolk turns as you advance deeper into the complex. Redtooth has been leader for ages. The gang is medium sized and all are ratfolk.
"Neat."
You follow your ratfolk escorts into a cavern where the roof is higher and the walls further apart. Here there are 6 truly enormous rats scurrying about. The squeak, but do not show any over aggression toward you.
Barlespin continues following until there is some indication that something is happening. He nods to one of the enormous rats in greeting.
Barlespin says to the ratfolk leading them, "How much deeper into these caves until we get to Redtooth?"
After several minutes following the ratfolk through the tunnels you arrive in a chamber where you are greeted by the leader of this gang Redtooth. She is intrigued by you and what you are doing within Scrapwall. Taking some time to speak with her you discover that she was born here, as was her brother who has been missing for the past few weeks. She asks for you to bring back any news you find of him that you may come across in your travels.
You depart, further exploring Scrapwall you find a narrow tunnel in the eastern side of the town . Following this you came across the lair of a creature. It looks to have once been a Manticore, but has mutated and looks misshapen and wrong. The lair is a tangle of a tangled mess of coils of razor-spiked wire, rusty chains, bones, rubble, and the like. The vicious barbs and jagged edges cut at your exposed flesh, however the manticore’s thick hide seems to protect it. After a long and vicious battle you manage to kill the manticore and search its nest. Within the rubble you find : a rusted iron coffer containing 250 gp, a masterwork cold iron dagger, a +1 battleaxe, a silver armband with inset pearls worth a total of 700 gp, a ring of the ram with 17 charges remaining, and an EMP pistol (9 charges).
Your travels are taking you toward the area in the north east of town since it is the last section of town that you have to explore. You emerge from the manticore lair and push toward the east. Here you see bodies strewn all over. The bodies have been scavenged by something, most probably by the vultures that wheel overhead. They do not bother you as you move through the area. Inspecting the remains you see that many of the bodies bear crude tattoos or clutch fetishes made of junk that resemble the same robotic claw. You recognise this as the holy symbol of a deity named Hellion.
In this area you find the receiving array that is collecting the energy beamed here from Torch. With a little ingenuity you manage to destroy it.
Moving further to the east into the extreme north east of Scrapwall you find what looks to be a crashed advanced vehicle of some kind, similar, if much smaller, to the one you found below Torch.
The air is unnaturally cold in this empty atrium. Metal doorways yawn to the north and south, and the slanted floor is strewn with strange bits of rubble and twisted lengths of metal. The ceiling is badly damaged here, its gray metal shell shattered in numerous places, exposing coils of rusty, mold-covered cables and wires.
Ahead of you stands a wide open door and a wretched smell wafts through it.
Then:
"This Hellion god, Ezir... you familiar? what should we expect?"
==========================
Now:
Eskanii motions for silence and slips through the door, falchion out.
Not sure how much we can glean from the followers of a specific deity without knowing which aspect they revere. I'm going to stay back here for now as I'm not very sneaky.
Hellion is the lord and god of the Lords of Rust. Many have heard its voice or have seen its fiendish visage on the monitors found throughout the excavator, yet none can say they’ve seen Hellion in the flesh. Most
believe Hellion to be a powerful fiend (a demon or devil), while others suspect it of being a Technic League agent using a fiend’s facade to sow fear. Others believe it to be an alien, the ghost of an ancient crew member from the Silver Mount, or even a trickster posing as a god. None have yet come close to the truth. The domains of Hellion are Artifice, Chaos, Evil, Madness.
A flat, reflective panel that looks like some kind of dark mirror suddenly flickers with white light before an image forms on it. This figure looks like some kind of clockwork arachnid. What you assume are it's eyes swivel toward you and seem to stare through the screen at you.
Eskanii stabs the screen!
She then quietly opens the doors and moves into the passage beyond...
Eskanii looks down the hallway toward the door that sits open ahead. The room ahead is lit by a slight glow inside.
To the left and the right ahead doors also hang open with a grinding sound like metal on metal coming from the left hand door and the smell of rotting flesh coming from the right hand door.
Sneaking to the edge of the two doors she peeks into the two rooms.
Eskanii looks inside the door to her left first
The northeastern wall of this blasted chamber was obviously super-heated at some point, for here and there, the walls ran waxlike, forming slag that cooled into puddles of steel all along the floor. Debris litters the floor—it might once have been tech of great value but now is mere scraps of unsalvageable, half-melted junk.
She sees three ghostly, skeletal figures rising up amid a whirling cyclone of tools, plates, utensils, and other loose objects.
She then peeks inside the southern room.
The air in this compartment is choking and stale. The dust here is inches thick—nothing has disturbed this area in years. To the west, the wall is partially crushed and melted, leaving a five-foot-wide, two-foot-tall gap that opens into another chamber beyond. Four large coffin-shaped objects made of glass and metal sit against the walls—one to the north and three to the south.
The northern pod and the central southern pod are partially broken. Each contains a skeleton clad in fragments of strange, bulky armor. The other two southern pods appear to be only slightly damaged. The air is thick with a rancid scent, like old meat gone bad