And just like that - some Abysshead startles the creature, long enough to get a final shot in.
The place goes quiet. You communicate back to HQ - the Draconic VC is concerned for your welfare but delighted you are ok and able to continue.
After recovering, you search the area in detail.
***
Outside the towers:
You notice a metal plaque bolted into the tower wall, covered by a layer of frost that obscures its purpose. You clear away the frost and reveal the fearsome image of a great dragon printed into the metal, with words in an archaic dialect of Triaxian underneath.
You identify a creature as a black dragon.
The writing underneath the image reads: “Brior the Unblinking sees all. Disobedience is death.”
As you scraped away the layers of snow at the base of tower, you find tiny crystal deposits that appear to be growing up the sides. You check the other tower and find the same.
***
Inside the towers:
An equipment locker in the south tower still contains an old style d-suit II in good condition.
On a metal desk you find what appears to be an old logbook. You also find a chess-like board game in the battered desk alongside the logbook with pieces shaped like dragons and ryphorians. The game looks quite valuable.
The logbook details shipments from the mines outside the city.The records indicate regular shipments came into the city from the mines weekly until abruptly ceasing, along with all communication from the mines. The final entry states that all military personnel were to remain on high alert until further notice
***
Whilst sifting through the rubble you find some pre-Gap equipment broken beyond repair. The equipment itself is unremarkable in design save for one thing: the battery slots are dusted with a strange residue.
If the above is passed:
You identify the residue as coming from some kind of mineral that was used to power the equipment.
***
Communications Array:
The communications array is damaged and old, and lacks a power supply.
[ooc]DC 22 Engineering check to jury-rig it and link it to a battery
The array suddenly flares to life with a violent blast of hissing
static.
A gravelly voice is audible through the interference. “Once more, this is... calling for assistance from Cadascon. I have been injured... barricaded myself in the guard tower. The rebels are relentless... feel no fear or pain. My wound… I fear soon I won’t be able to move... my last message. I will set it to loop and hope... receives it.” After that, the message simply repeats.
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Conrad smiles at the end of the fight. "Solid work. Solid work!"
After the break, he looks around:
"Check out this plaque. I think the writing underneath the image reads: “Brior the Unblinking sees all. Disobedience is death.”
"These logs look interesting too. The logbook details shipments from the mines outside the city. The records indicate regular shipments came into the city from the mines weekly until abruptly ceasing, along with all communication from the mines. The final entry states that all military personnel were to remain on high alert until further notice. Ominous."
"Check it out! Some of this looks pre-Gap! Anyone know what this residue is?"
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And almost as though the universe knows he's no longer in danger before he does, the stellar flames coursing through Azara's veins extinguish at the same time his last opponent is taken out of the fight.
But he's not on the point of collapse, this time. A nice change from the norm. Still, he takes some time to catch his breath and check himself for serious wounds.
He's a little too slow on investigating the towers and Conrad spots all of the things he would.
"This Brior sounds like a real benevolent ruler," he comments. "If he saw all, why didn't he see his mind getting shut down?"
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Daata shields himself from the burst of cold, and looks up as the creature falls. He catches his axe and returns it to his utility belt, then takes a moment to recharge Mikey's battery from its backup.
The izalguun investigates the pre-Gap technology, then tests the residue's texture with an extendable metal rod. "Mineral, probably combustive. My guess is this is what powered the equipment."
He fiddles with the comms array and gets it to suddenly flare to life, with some vague Triaxian words peeking through the hissing static.
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Mr. Bison takes a blast of the ursikka's saliva, but still laughs and says as he sees the ursikka go down under a flurry of blows, "Get lost, you can't compare with my powers."
He then floats over to Zangief and begins repairs on the drone.
Gotdreal emerges from the snow drift he was hiding behind and begins assisting Mr. Bison in repairing Zangief.
Your comms units light up.
Gunfire and other sounds of combat can be heard in the background of the transmission. Naveret’s voice comes through the static intermittently. Naveret’s words are cut off by the sounds of a large impact and pained grunt. The comm unit falls silent.
After a moment, Zafeldrin speaks. “Team A, you’re the closest to Team B’s location. Please prove aid to them immediately. I’ll work from here to bring their comm units back up to try and locate them. I’m sending you their last known coordinates.”
The coordinates are for a location about 10 minutes away.
The coordinates given by Zafeldrin lead you to a small group of dilapidated buildings just outside the city proper. There are no clear signs of Team B.
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Azara has to pace himself to keep from outpacing most of the group. When they near the coordinates he rushes forward to scout.
But when the other Starfinders catch up to him, he hasn't gotten far. In fact, he's looking around rather helplessly, unable to find any sign of Team B or their assailants, whoever and whatever they might be.
Working together you manage to pick up and follow the teams trail through the snow, eventually finding the location where Team B’s battle took place, and you can make out the signs of multiple tracks in the fine layer of ash and snow.
Mr Bison identifies the footprints of Iko — based on his size — and Cailis and Navaret — based on their boots. The same check also reveals that there were multiple, humanoid assailants that were barefoot. There are also two imprints in the snow that indicate two combatants fell. One was clearly Iko, but it’s impossible to identify the other, aside from that it was a Medium creature.
You realise that the assailants’ footprints lack the imprint of any flesh, and that they were likely left by an undead creature primarily made of bone.
You find charred bone and crystal fragments littering the battlefield.
Looking closely at the tracks you notice two trails leading away from the scene. It appears that some of the assailants dragged Iko and the other Starfinder away, while other assailants chased the remaining Starfinder in a different direction.
As you make your discoveries you pick up a distress beacon, it appears to be roughly in the direction the single person fled in with pursuers on their trail.
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Azara is ready to follow Daata's plan until Tchisk throws some logic he hadn't considered into the mix.
"Stars shine on the good and bad"
"The universe always spins"
"We're just along for the ride"
He contemplates the pointlessness of doing anything in the grand scheme of things, which means that every choice is as important as every other. Each action you take is both completely meaningless and of utmost importance.
"Tchisk is right. We may have more time to come back for these 2 but this one may get killed while they're trying to apprehend them."
"Or we could split up and try to get them all at the same time. How does everyone feel about their chances at half strength against an unknown number of undead?"
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"Though sending two different groups to rescue both sets of Starfinders would be ideal. I don't think it would be an good idea. Zangief is functional, but still heavily damaged. His combat efficiency is probably cut by 75% because of this."
"I say we respond to the distress signal. If the lone Starfinder is being pursued by the undead let's find them and attack them using maximum force. They may have captured our teammate already and are using the distress beacon to lure us into a trap, but since we already are aware of this we'll be ready for them."
"We don't actually know if the two that were dragged away from the battlefield are still alive."
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If I read the posts right, these are the votes so far:
Daata- captives
Tchisk- runner
Azara- runner/split the party
Tricsie- ??
MrBison runner
"We're not abandoning anyone. I only want to be at our strongest when we do go get them. Having an additional companion with us would make us better capable of succeeding in rescuing our comrades."
M.Bison, Tchisk would cast Make Whole on Zangief while we took a 10 minute rest. Repair hit points back.
***
You rush to the source of the beacon, and pick up the trail of the fleeing Starfinder as it heads towards the edge of the city, and it eventually leads into one of the outer buildings. The door is shut and there is no obvious alternate entry. A bunch of footprints circle the building, but then depart.
You announce your presence and Cailis lets you in, though you can hear even from the other side of the door that her effort is obviously labored.
Battered and bloody, Cailis leans on her rifle to stand on the other side of the door. A large shard of crystal has been embedded in her thigh. The shard grows slightly larger, and Cailis winces in pain.
“You’re a bit late,” Cailis says deadpan. “No. Sorry. That was supposed to be a joke to lighten the mood, but it wasn’t funny. I’ll just give you the rundown. We were scouting the area when we were attacked by these skeletal... things. But they weren’t just skeletons. They had crystals growing out of them. You’ve seen the crystals around, right? And lasers just bounced right off them. Anyway, after they knocked out Iko and Naveret, I realized they were trying to take us alive, so I ran, hoping to lose them and double back to get help. But then,” she gestures to her leg, “one of them shot a crystal at me and it stuck in my leg and started spreading. Now I can barely walk, so I holed myself up in here and hoped someone got our transmission.”
Daata notices several shapes converging on your location...
Azara
Mr. Bison
Conrad
Tchisk
Tricsie
Daata
ENEMY
R1
Azara
ENEMY
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"Got caught in traffic," Azara replies to the joke.
He listens closely as she speaks then looks down ruefully at his new pistol. "Immune to lasers, huh?"
"Let's see how they feel about getting cut..."
He runs out of the room and straight at and too one of the pairs of skeletons.
As he moves, he is lit once more with stellar flames and he pulls down the mote of light from between his antennae, the energy transforming into a razor sharp ankh by the time he gets to the skeleton and swings at it.
Azara smashes into the first skeleton that seems pretty surprised about the whole affair.
r
One of the skeletons runs around the corner and joins the melee!
o
Another runs in to engage Daata
Firing a crystal shard at the Izalguun prior to the advance!
Attack
Missing by the most narrow margin.
The other pair work on Azara!
y
Attacks and steps...
Attack
Damage
G
Steps and attacks.
Attack
Damage
R1
Bison
Tchisk
Conrad
Daata
Trick
R2
Azara
ENEMY
R
O
Y16
G
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Tricsie looks concerned at Cailis and at the growing crystal. That's gonna have to come out ... but I don't think it can be done here
She then spins around at the sound of combat , moves to the door behind the izilguun while drawing her thunderstrike sonic pistol
Let's see if I can hit the resonate frequency of those crystals then while aiming at orange
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"Best thing about fighting undead is you don't feel guilty killing them, when you kill them, because they're already dead!"
Zangief carries Mr. Bison into a flanking position on red. From his position on Zangief's back Mr. Bison doubles the strength of his tentacles at the molecular level before setting his great axe ablaze with his photoenergetic node. With it raised high above his head he sends it crashing down on the skeleton.
Tricks manages to land another shot!
Mr Bison gives a massive wind up, but fails to connect!
Daata throws his axe at a skeleton, hitting it in the back!
Mikey gets a shot into it too!
Tchisk begins summoning!
R1
Bison - attacked
Tchisk - summoning
Conrad
Daata - atced
Trick - attacked
R2
Azara
ENEMY
R 14
O 5
Y 16
G
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Azara changes targets as the rest of the team does some damage to the skeleton that came at him from behind.
Hopefully it will be distracted by the drone.
He then gets away from two of the skeletons so that his back is not to one of them. Now, none of them can get to his back without leaving themselves exposed for a moment.
"Give me 10', little drone. I'm about to burn," he tells the 'bot nearby.
Trix peppers the skeleton with mystic bolts.
R2
Bison
Tchisk
Conrad
Daata
Trick - cast
R3
Azara
ENEMY
R Dead
O 11
Y 16
G
Trix smashes a pile of mystic energy into one of the skeletons.
***
O
Fires off a crystal at Daata!
Attack
Y
Repositions and claws at Azara.
Attack
G
Repositions to flank Azara, and attacks!
Attack
Damage
R2
Bison
Tchisk
Conrad
Daata
Trick - cast
R3
Azara
ENEMY
R Dead
O 17
Y 16
G
Zangief crushes the skeleton!
R2
Bison - attacked
Tchisk
Conrad
Daata
Trick - cast
R3
Azara
ENEMY
R Dead
O Dead
Y 16
G
Conrad inspires the team.
Tchisk gets a sneak shot into the skeleton courtesy of his strobe light!
The summoned creature likewise blinks in and gets to work - striking the skeleton!
R2
Bison - attacked
Tchisk - acted
Conrad - inspired
Daata
Trick - cast
R3
Azara
ENEMY
R Dead
O Dead
Y 16
G 11