Seo-Yeon moves around the corner coming up next to Reconstructor, trying to shoot the other heavily armored soldier from her hips.
Xawn’s shot connects, but Seo’s shot goes wide. Meanwhile, Jellik runs up and starts trying to provide covering fire.
But he is not trained in such things and doesn’t provide much help.
***Round 3, Fight!***
Bold May go
Pratt
Green-1 to hit, +1 to be hit, -3 HP
Reconstructor
Purple -12
Seo
Rook
Xawn
Jellik
Pratt fires at the heavily armored foe.
Purple goes down, Green Again tries to trick Pratt
***Round 3, Fight!***
Bold May go
Pratt
Green-1 to hit, +1 to be hit, -3 HP
Reconstructor
Seo
Rook
Xawn
Jellik
287 takes a step and fires on the remaining soldier.
Seo-Yeon moves up again and in on the lightly armored one, the last one standing.
She shoots again quickly.
Seemingly too quick...
Surrender! On your knees and hands over your head!
Despite Seo’s warning, the woman doesn’t surrender. In fact, she presents no sign of understanding what people are saying.
Jellik again tries to hinder green
Again it doesn’t do much.
***Round 3 &4Fight!***
Bold May go
Prattl
Green-1 to hit, +1 to be hit, -4 HP
Reconstructor
Seo
Rook
Xawn
Jellik
Looking on at Seo's attempt to draw surrender from the remaining Azlanti, Xaun's blue corolla fluttered in worry.
This was going to be a problem. Xaun Not knowing these beings' language precluded any possibility of parlay. Even if there were a telepath among them, this would be a problem.
Green wrathfully shouts something in Azlanti, seemingly not bothered by the fact that she is outnumbered 5 to 1, and keeps firing
Again, her rage gets the better of her and she seems unable to line up a clear shot. She keeps shouting things you don't understand, a mad glint in her eye.
***Round 4 Fight!***
Bold May go
Pratt
Green-1 to hit, +1 to be hit, -7 HP
Reconstructor
Seo
Rook
Xawn
Jellik
287 truly unloads on the remaining soldier.
Rook drops his pistol and ghosts forward. Changing grips on his cane, he withdrew a long, thin blade and struck in a smooth motion.
And with that the final combatant goes down.
***Combat Over***
The two heavy troopers each have the following:
-Heavy Azlanti Armor (Counts as troop ceremonial plate)
-An Azlanti Rifle (Functions as a hunting rifle, they each have a full spare magazine of 12 rounds)
-A handaxe
The lightly-armored troop has:
-Azlanti light tactical armor (Counts as Shobohod harness, Recruit)
-Azlanti Revolver: (Treat it as a Semi-Auto Tactical pistol, only it only houses 6 rounds, but has a range of 40ft.)
-12 rounds of small arms ammo held in two speed-loaders for the revolver
-The Azlanti equivalent of a tactical baton (use the same stats as normal)
Jellick leads you through the forest. A few times you catch sight of a road, but he waves you off of it, insisting it is too dangerous. Eventually, he leads you to the back of what look like large cargo containers.
This mechanic’s workshop consists of three interconnected, prefabricated modules, each the size of a shipping container. The central module is open on one side and appears to be a repair bay, although the tool chests, spools of wire, and broken equipment stacked
haphazardly around the area imply that the repairs are slow going at best. Storage crates, broken furniture, and scrapped engines litter the yard around the junk shop. A short metal fence surrounds the yard, separating the chaos within from the orderly paths and shrubs of the
surrounding colonists’ modules.
A bit Jumpy, Jellick hesitantly calls out "Aibretta?" Honey?"
From another interconnected container comes an older woman in an orange jumpsuit (see slide 5). She begins hollering "Don't you 'Honey' me! I thought you were dead. Comm chatter said you got yourself captured or-hello? Who are these people Jellick?"
Jellick looks a bit browbeaten and just looks around. "I-uh, I . . . they are friends of Cedona. Listen, Aibretta, they took out two patrols of those guys. I think-well, I mean . . . I was thinking they could . . . help? Help us?"
The woman, Aibretta evidently, sighs heavily. "Jellick, could you, go get some food out of that synthesizer? I've been working to keep it going so we can feed everyone here. Should be enough UPBs in there for a snack for everyone." After that the woman ushers you into her personal living module and gestures for you to sit down.
"So, I'm Aibretta. I am, or was, lead engineer for Madelon's Landing. Now who are you and what's going on?"
Despite having taken a beating, Pratt suggests pulling the bodies off of the path and into the woods. Though he's unsure what he can personally use, he asks Jellick if there is a place nearby to hide the arms and armor in case we need to use them or give them to some colonists.
Thank you mam. My name is Pratt Bivens. We're a starship crew delivering supplies, and we're all also friends of Cedona. Our ship is a few clicks outside of town.
Pratt is hopeful he can take a rest here, and perhaps even get some medical attention for his minor bullet wound. .
He also wouldn't mind a place to plug in his rifle battery, as it's nearly half expended.
Despite having cut down a trooper minutes before, Rook was back to his careful movements inside the unfamiliar building, tapping his was around until he found a place to sit. "We were a supply run. Came through the drone picket your occupiers set up and landed outside of sensor range when we figured out something was wrong here. My associates are highly capable combatants and none of us much care for what we've heard so far. With your permission, we'd like to use this workshop as a staging ground for recon and later direct action."
Aibretta blinks a few times and looks taken aback. She quickly composes herself and then grabs a half-functioning datapad.
"Hm, I-erm, yes. Well, if you are willing, we certainly would like to kick these damn Azlanti off our planet. I . . . listen, you can stay here, these damn Azlanti never seem to check my personal module, but . . . okay. So, here's the thing. Jellick's an idiot. A lovable idiot. I need to make sure you guys can do what you say you can do before we risk you making the situation worse.
"Tell you what, I'm working on a way to learn the Azlanti language. I've got one of those Tetrad certified translators plugged into one of their comm units that an idiot Azlanti came by and demanded I repair at gunpoint. The machine is learning their language, but it'll take a few hours before it's up to snuff. In the meantime, I need you to check on someone. The settlement's clerk is in a shack not too far from here . I saw one of them Azlanti heading there ten minutes ago. Now the company clerk is a man named Rendell Tace. Has no sense in his head but he's good with numbers. Anyway, like I said, no sense whatsoever. Go check on him to make sure he hasn't gotten himself killed, and in the meantime I'll see what I can puzzle out of this Tetrad device. Manage to do it without attracting too much attention, and I'll know that I can trust you to do some of the bigger stuff. Sound like a deal?"
Xawn touches Pratt on the shoulder and says gently,
"Let's take care of that bullet wound,"
Pratt will use the time for a short rest
"Thanks Xawn. I'm sure I'll bounce back."
While Xawn is able to sew up Pratt, he doesn't receive much healing from it
287 stands next to Rook during the whole exchange not saying anything.
Xaun politely refused the offer of food.
"My species requires no food, but thank you."
Their interest was held by the translation device Aibretta spoke of. These Azlanti were fascinating. An entire human subspecies from beyond the Pact Worlds! There were unidentified genetic markers in the samples Xaun analyzed suggesting a divergence thousands or tens of thousands of years in the past. ...into the time of Old Golarion!. In a matter of hours, the inscrutable utterances of these terrifying intruders would become accessible.
"A solid deal. When should we move? I expect the occupiers move with something approaching regularity?"
"A solid deal. When should we move? I expect the occupiers move with something approaching regularity?"
Aibretta looks around. "I mean, catch your breath, but I saw that trooper a while ago, so I wouldn't wait too long. Also, yes, but I have their patrols mostly recognized. If you stick to the jungle, you should only have to cross one road, and I'll figure out when the next patrol goes by that road so you can avoid it."
"Okay Aibretta. We'll go over and check on your supply clerk, and we'll do it in a most clandestine manner. Just let us eat some of this delightful. . . .uhhh. . . .casserole? We shall leave momentarily."
Pratt huddles up with his fellow crew mates and makes a plan to sneak to the warehouse along the back sides of the buildings near the edge of the forest.
[ooc]I did declare that Pratt would use an RP earlier. He's tanking a lot of damage, and he's not particularly good at tanking!{/ooc]
"Seo, are you up for taking point on this? We need someone moving ahead of us and checking for stray combatants."
Mh yes. This plan probably is as good as any other. We should avoid facing the whole garrison though and best not make too much noise or touble.
As Seo scouts and the party make their way through the Jungle, they see very few people in the camp. A patrol of three Aeon Guardsman passes the road just when Aibretta said they would, and after letting them pass, the group manages to get to the clerk's office without any incidents.
The entire party manages to stealth up to the rear entrance and open up the door. Inside they see a Clerk's office which seems like it was once decently organized with spare parts and items on shelves (mostly stuff that is useless to you, like food synthesizers, MRE food packets, and other colonization items). However, one of the massive shelves has collapsed, spreading it's contents all over the warehouse. There is a single heavily armed Azlanti guard standing at attention in the warehouse, facing away from you towards the front door. There is no sign of another colonist.
Pratt eyes this "Azlanti" suspiciously and calmly calls out, all while covering him with his rifle.
"Turn around nice and slow. . . .put the rifle down and keep your hands where we can see them. . . .we just want to talk."
Speaking to his companions, Pratt says, "I don't think that armor is working for this person. It's as if it's not even the right size. Something is fishy."
The man turns around, rifle at the ready, although he nearly falls over in doing so.
"Nothing to see here citi-zen?" he falters for a moment, eyeing the group.
"I-uh . . . I . . .you aren't from the colony? And I don't remember any Vlaka being with the Azlanti . . ."
He sets the rifle down and starts taking off his armor.
"Oh thank god you aren't Azlanti! Who are you people, what are you doing here?"
"Well, I was thinking of baking a cake and wanted to get some ingredients. The lovely woman who runs the machine shop said this was the place to look," Rook said cheerfully. "Do you have a cup of flour?"
The man looks quizzically at the Vlaka. "I . . . What? I . . . listen . . . We don't have time for games. . . I'm sure we don't have a Vlaka or a . . .Ghorran on our colony manifest, and I know these Azlanti didn't bring any, so where'd you come from and what's going on?"
The fear and nerves on this man were palpable. If Xaun could sense the pheromones Rook should be able to smell them. How would he play this?
"We're friends of someone here in the colony. Tell us your name, friend."
”I. . . Uh. . . Tace, Rendell Tace. Thank god you came.” at this point he finishes stripping out of his armor and is revealed to be wearing colonist’s clothes underneath.
”One of those Azlanti guys came and started pointing this rifle at me and shouting. It looked like he was going to take the food or something. I kinda tried to stop him, so he took a step back and looked like he was going to shoot me. Only he took a step back into that shelf of drilling equipment. The whole thing collapsed on him and killed him instantly. I knew that they were going to blame me so I. . . I buried him out back and put on his armor, hoping I could bluff past any Azlanti who came looking for me. Thank god you found me first!”