Heavy breathing filled the large cavern, making it sound as if the cave itself was alive with breath. Torchlight flickered upon its high walls, showing both clean, smooth surfaces paired with irregular erosion patterns from where a small trickle of water has created a small tear upon the wall.
The large, metallic circle stands in the middle of the room, looking impassively upon everything before it.
Your no stranger to combat. Youve explored the wilderness before, battled goblins, kobolds, orcs, bugbears, and that young wyrmling just outside the entrance to these caves.
But for some reason, this...this...thing that stepped through the strange circle of water. THis was different. This was intense. It played upon your fear. But it shouldnt have.
It was tall.
It was muscular.
It was...it was...uncaring. Devoid of emotion. Sure youve heard of creatures that are devoid of emotion, unrelenting. Zombies, ghouls, other undead, those lack emotion as well. But this, this was a different type of uncaring.
it has to have been the helm. you think to yourself, looking at the creatures helmet. Its once red eyes now turned black, as if to signify that the creature was truly dead. The helm was more than just a helmet. it covered the head, neck, and upper shoulders, yet doesnt show any means of attaching to the creature itself with straps or belts. It seems to be molded to the creature...
But thats not all. It was its weapon. Youd never seen or heard of anything like it before. Sure youve seen magic wands hurl bolts of lightning, or balls of fire, but this also was different. It made a strange noise as it shot.
Your eyes glance down at the device. Long, staff shaped. An obvious hand grip about a quarter of the way from one end, the other end, the business end, was oblique, cylindrical, cut into quarters. it rippled with an electric charge prior to firing. The shot itself was devistating, blowing a hole through the professors chest with ease. The fabled firearms of the deep south werent reputed to be able to do that.
Everything makes sense now...but when that thing walked through, why did it fill me with such a strange feeling of dread? you think to yourself, slowly relaxing.
The fight had been horrific, the sudden appearance of the monstrous man, the immediate death of the professor, the screams of pain and death. Yukarii shuddered as she remembered the sound of the staff and the sight of those glowing eyes. How this filled her with more fear than the wyrmling was difficult to comprehend though the fact she was distantly related to the wyrmling probably factored into that somewhat. She moved to the professor and knelt next to his lifeless body, reached out, and closed his eyes, "Rest well professor, you made your discovery and we will see it through."
Rising from her place next to the professor Yukarii stepped back and cast a quick spell, the dust and filth sliding off of her dress like water, and looked to the others as she asked, "Does anyone know what that," she pointed to the warrior's body, "was?" Clean again Yukarii was a strikingly beautiful woman who had often been confused for a tiefling. She wasn't one of the fiendish children though but a half elf with more than a little dragons blood. The top of her head was covered in delicate bronze scales and horns jutted from her skull, two small ones up and back from her temples and a larger pair that came from above her ears and curled forward. Her amber eyes were slanted up the outer corners and her curvy figure was contained inside of a bronze colored dress. Looking at Yukarii those who'd been around her could tell she was visibly shaken by the events that had just transpired and nothing had ever been seen to bother her before now.
I've no idea. Harman says quietly. But let me study it and I may yet find out. Harman walks over to the body and picks the staff up so that he can examine it. I've never seen a magic staff quite like this. Harman takes a small bottle of wine, no more than a few drops from his pouch and casts the spell identify on the staff.
Zero ignored the others' stares. She knew everybody tried to look at her, if only briefly. They didn't know what to say. As is always the case when someone looses someone close. And it becomes more difficult, the closer he was.
Zero just stood there, leaning against the wall. Just a small tear running down her otherwise emotionless face. She looked at her dead father, but not quite. She stared through the corpse into nothingness, trying to understand her new situation. I am not ready. You went to early. Why didn't you teach me more?
You shall sail rightly in your bark, with the lord of eternity in the crossing of the sky.
Be not afraid in your limbs, for Hu and Hike overthrow for you that evil being.
You shall see light-land and you shall dwell in it.
They shall make way for you that you may see Nun and Amun! For you are that Akh who passes by the guards.
You are equipped and effective in opening his portal!
As for any person who knows this spell, he will be like the eastern sky, like the netherworld. He will go down to the circle of fire, without the flame touching him ever!
Efni stood over the dead body, giving a loud prayer that may not make much sense to anyone else. But to his belief, the professor is going into the afterlife.
"Goodbye, old friend. Em hotep."
He kept on praying, but did so in silence and therefore ignored the initiative of the others for now.
Hodawan folds the Professor's arms across his chest, covering the grisly wound as best she can, and says her own simple eulogy.
"I did not know the Professor long, but he was kind to me, and showed more genuine interest in my people than I've ever seen an outsider express. The Dawnflower carry him to his rightful place in the afterlife, that he may share his knowledge and kind heart with those who come after."
"I would like to give him a proper funeral before we go anywhere. The rest of you knew him longer than I; how did his people prefer to deal with a body? The Sun Clan cremates their honored dead, and I would be honored to perform the rites for him if they are appropriate."
Amhern stood on the sides as well as Zero. His face was one of frustration and consigned to the fate that befell the poor professor.
Not something you could help. Wounds from combat are difficult to heal. I could still help the others live to tell the tale.
"Aye t'is a shame the professor took the first hit. If we'd had any'mor time I coul' have givin' him treatment."
The gruff dwarf fidgeted with his heavy crossbow he holds in his hands, checking it for flaws or damages. More a distraction from the sudden turn of events and how quickly excitement was replaced by shock and grief.
"May the Earthern Fathers guide him to his afterlife."
Amhern moved closer to Harman, inspecting the strange design before them on the ground.
Curious, not a clear trigger mechanism to be seen. No bolts or ammunition in any way.
"I wonder what might be able to shield one from such a blast. A tree? Stone?"
Amhern murmured to no one really, but Harman could clearly hear him.
perception checks
as you lean back against the wall and silently grieve the loss of your father, your mind blank from grief, you begin to imagine hearing a slight, subtle sound. at first, its faint, at the edge of your hearing, making you beileve that you truly did imagine it. but then, you hear it again. slight, just a whisper, blending in and out of the background noises, you slowly move forward attempting to pinpoint the source. you take several steps into the cavern, stepping here and there, listening, until you track it to its source. Its coming from the body of the strange creature with the serpents helm.
Strange. It doesn't seem to be magical. It must be an artifact of some power then. He looks over at the others then back to the creature. Quite a mystery. Harman walks over to Zero the staff still in his hand. I'm sorry for your loss, he seemed a good man.
Hodawan leaves those closer to the Professor to grieve, and moves to take a closer look at the ring.
"He charged us with finishing his research but...how?" she wonders aloud.
She presses a random sequence of buttons but (presumably) nothing much happens.
"Did the Professor leave a journal behind? A clue to where we are meant to start?"
Hodawan, as you ask your question out loud, your eyes fall upon one of the professors books that he has been known to have lurking upon or within arms reach of his body. you easily remember that the man has carried at least 7 unique journals with him, and writing within two of them.
Hodawan, answering her own question, moves to read the journal unless somebody else does so first.
Yukarii noticed when Hodawan went to the stone block with the glyphs on it and approached as well. She looked at the various glyphs and tried to identify what they might mean. Were they a language or something else? As Hodawan began looking through the journals Yukarii studied the glyphs closely and tried to determine what they might mean.
Amhern, still squatting down near the strange weapon, looks up: "The professor hired me to guide the first group going in. I will hold on to the promise I made to him. When you discover what you need, we should still be ready to venture out at moment's notice."
The dwarf stands back up again.
"This thing seems useful to me. It doesn't look broken. I would suggest taking it with us and see if we can discover how to fire it."
While the others were investigating the strange weapon, Zero heard a faint noise. It came from the other corpse, the attacker.
While pinpointing the sound source she asks "Do you hear that? I think there's a noise originating from the attackers corpse."
Carefully she comes closer, but stays away from the alien creature.
"This one needs to go to hell, but he still deserves a prayer..." The Cleric explains, while also getting closer to the alien corpse.
"Are you sure?" he responds to Zero. When towering above the dead body he heard it, too.
"ah, now I can hear it, too. An animal, maybe? He could be a wizard with a familiar. Did we search him already? Or maybe he isn't dead yet?"
Yukarii turned her focus as soon as she heard someone say the warrior might not be dead yet and her gaze snapped in that direction instantly. It was hard enough taking the thing down the first time, if it could get back up again they might not make it out of here alive. "Move back from it, quickly!" There was fearful urgency in Yukarii's voice as she spoke and she quickly began to cast a spell again determined to make sure the monster didn't get back up. Her hand became wreathed in crackling electricity as she approached ready to reach out and touch someone if he got up again.
Efni, ignoring Yukarii's sudden command to move away from the....thing, examines the body.
The helm is in the shape of a serpent, like a large cobra found in the deep jungles of Mwangi. yet, below the large, distinctive helm, the rest of the body looks humanoid. 2 arms, 2 legs, covered in a heavy mail, yet more tightly wound than what is commonly produced in the world today. It's leggings look like a sort of smooth, 2nd skin. And it's boots look equally as strange as well. They seem to fit the feet more so than what is also commonly found in the world today.
It's odd though. the sword cuts upon the body were not deadly strikes, from what Efni understands of his basic healing knowledge. The creature shouldnt have died. Yet it did. Sword cuts, and two broken bolts to the creatures abdomen. Snapped off in the heat of combat, they appear to have been able to punch through a weakpoint in the creatures unique armor.
From the creatures side, a voice suddenly shrills loudly to Efni's ears, yet muffled from being contained within a side pocket.
Jaffa!! Kree!!
Efni stumbles back, quickly standing up and moving a few feet away.
"There's.... something still alive. The wounds we inflicted shouldn't kill a man."
"Perhaps their abdomen is a weak point? The armor does seem a bit thinner there, though that's odd in its own way." Hodawan says.
"And who was that? Surely it couldn't have been the dead creature...and that language is unlike any I've heard before."
Amhern reloads his heavy crossbow and moves over slowly. Pointing the bolt at the possibly dead being on the ground.
"He'll get another bolt righ' here an' now to make sure he's dead."
"Aye! That voice didn't seem to come from his head. Maybe somethin' he's carryin'. Like a Sendin' Stone or somethin'."
Harman walks over and kneels down, following the sound to his pocket and opening it to pull out whatever it is.
Harman reaches into the pocket of the creature and pulls out a perfectly round silver sphere.
With it removed from the pocket, the voice grows louder, allowing everyone to hear JAFFA! KREE!
"What is that? It looks as strange as the weapon. We need to go through the portal and avenge my father's death. Plus investigate this stuff..."
Zero was eager to move on.
Yukarii seemed to relax a little when it turned out there was no sign of life, just a strange talking something. She dismissed the spell she held, lamenting silently it's loss, and cast another to view magical auras and then examined the device under magical senses with her now glowing eyes.
Hodawan goes back to reading the journal while they figure that out.
"Patience a little longer, Zero. I understand you are distraught but the fact of the matter is none of us know how to work that device. Perhaps distract yourself by reading another of the Professor's journals? There could be clues hidden in any of them."
"I agree, with you, eh," he searches for a name," Hodawan, correct? Now you know, why they call her Zero" he smiles. and grabs a journal himself.
(sorry for the delay guys. still getting used to this.)
yukarii waves her hand over the silver sphere as it spouts its strange language, it's unseen voice urgent, commanding. To her eyes, she sees the magic take hold upon the sphere, and for a long moment, holds her attention.
Yukarii shook her head and said, "Whatever this," she gestured at the device making noise, "it isn't magic." While she still had the magic up she looked at the staff,noting it wasn't magic either, nor was the ring of stones or the strange stone with the glyphs, "None of this is magic which must mean it is something else, maybe the rumored 'technology' from Numeria?"
Amhern skips through the journals, hoping one of them might reference tools or weapons found before the doorway was opened.
Amhern seems to fiddle with the staff to see if he could find a lever or something to pull as if you were wielding a crossbow or something alike.
Zero watches the dwarf fiddle with the staff and makes her own assumptions about how to operate it.
1d20+12
Harman stares at the device in his hand, listening to the words that babble forth in a constant stream. he concentrates hard, thinking over all the languages he knows, the construction of their make up....but he cannot seem to figure out anything about this new language that is being spoken from the silver orb. Well, he may not understand what is being said, but he does figure out that the language is not one that is spoken on the planet.
Amhern tosses down one of the journals onto the floor and wanders over to where the staff lays. with a shrug he picks it up and starts to fiddle with it. As he looks it over, zero comes over and inspects it with him.
the staff is long, around 6 feet in length. It is surprisingly light in the hand, and the material that the staff is made of seems to be of a strange, hard metal. one third of the way up the shaft is an area of a contoured grip, allowing the user to grasp the shaft more effectively.
Amhern places his hand in the grip and, with the help of zero, starts fiddling with device. within a matter of seconds, a blast erupts from the large almond shaped head, striking the ceiling with an echoing blast. Small chunks of rock spit out, cascading upon the floor.
As the blast shoots up to the ceiling, Amhern steps back a little in a reflexive reaction.
"Well...I think we discovered how to operate this thing..."
Amhern looks to Zero and nods at him in recognition of his aid and thanks.
"Now to see if we can put this to use ourselves against our new enemies. As to the professors' journals," Amhern looks at the pile of books, "I can't make heads or tails of it. Seems like historians might do better than a survivalist in understanding his scribbles."
"I must agree with you, dwarf. I'm no expert either and it seems it would take days to understand what the old man had written down."
Maybe we need to take a more direct way and figure this thing here, he points at the gate and makes a circle with his hands, out in a more practical way.
"Zero, you're a bright girl. Take a look at it, would you, please"
Like Amhern, Zero had to take cover from the falling debris after they accidently fired off the weapon. Seconds later she picks up the weapon and simulates targeting something, while pointing it roughly at the gate, because nobody was standing in that direction. She wouldn't dare fire it again, of course.
"I guess, I could try, Master Raan, or is it Father Raan? I always forget...By the way, did you bring your giant bird, too? I like him."
She set off to fiddle with the gate, the same way she did with the weapon.