Unluckily for the creature, the lucky streak by the Starfinders continues!
R1
Croaker - acted
Obo - acted
R2
Ceolor - acted
Bar - acted
Cesar
ENEMY
R 52 (Burning)
Cesar swings and misses.
***
The creature sprays a stream of rapidly freezing saliva over Cesar and Croaker.
Frost + Entangled
DC13 Ref to halve damage and avoid entangled
Burn
Reflex
R2
Croaker
Obo
R3
Ceolor
Bar
Cesar
ENEMY
R 58 (Burning)
And in a flurry of shots, the creature falls dead in the snow. Obo's rifle seems to be functioning properly after all.
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.
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.
|
Ceolor takes a minute to meditate after the fight and realign himself with the bright shining bastion that are cultures around the pact worlds. He then pops up and helps everyone search the place. He looks at the first plaque and pauses. "Mayhaps I need to learn Triaxian... It's sadly not one of the nine languages I can speak with some fluency, but this one ryphorian I dated for a few months taught me a few words..."
"Apparently knowing how to say, 'hello,' 'please,' 'thank-you,' 'I'm glad you're a fan,' 'restroom' or 'where's the nearest brothel' doesn't help here."
As he wanders into the building, Ceolor picks up the book on the table and recognizes the insides immediately! "Oh, this is clearly a log book of shippments of something. Hold on I'll download Abadaroogle Translate and see if it can't handle single words in this dialect... Oh look at that it worked for some of this."
He however doesn't seem to notice anything else and Abadaroogle Translate can't seem to handle any of the other words around the buildings.
|
Croaker rests a bit after the fight responding to Obozaya
"Yeah I am fine, I just need to warm up. That spit was brutal! " Croaker shivers a bit trying to remove the sticky parts, not allowing him to move freely.
As they begin to investigate the tower Croaker looks at the plaque:
"The picture on this plaque is a black dragon! I can't read the text below, but I will take a picture and maybe our draconic friend can help."
Inside the tower, Croaker looks around the surroundings, he keeps his rifle on his back. But his paws are moving around the sources as he speaks in a soft whisper. His eyes are illuminating soft light as he looks for signs of magic
"Cesar, can you fix the communication array? I have tools, but beyond simple stuff, I have no detailed knowledge in engineering."
BUt it never stops and Ysoki from doing some repairs. With his tools he begins to replacing some whires, and looking for charged battery that could be used as a source of power.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Bar walks up to see the picture of the black lizard....
"If you say so Croaker, I think it looks like a black iguana....but I guess I am more an art critic..." He peers down to the wording underneath.
"Brior's lidless eye watches. Bad Behavior is loss of life....at least I think it means something like that."
"It looks to be bolted to the tower. Let's find if we can take it off the wall and take it with us. Our own dragon might want it for scaring away the Triaxian equivalent of mice?"
Helping getting the door open and wandering inside. Seeing Ceolor look at the book, Bar looks over his shoulder.
"Yeah some kind of log book, I agree. I see numerous logs of the same kind of item or material coming into the city from the mines, guessing daily or weekly. Near the end, there is some words. 'Talking no longer happening with mine. Military....on alert.'"
"That doesn't sound good....I wonder what they were shipping into the city...."
Walking around, Bar pokes around to see if anything of worth was left....
"Lots of broken pre-Gap equipment that appears broken....hmm...weird. This--I guess a music player, as it has 'Glideman' on it--the battery slot has this weird residue on it. I wouldn't have noticed the weirdness except the automated coffee maker over there had the exact same thing. And look here, this automated heater unit does too..."
"I might know a few things about engineering, but we have a full blown technomaner here....let me see if I can help you get this array working."
***
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.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
|
|
As the comm comes in from Naveret, Bar gets up from where he was fiddling with the auto-coffee maker and the automatic heater and dusts off his hands. When Zafeldrin says that they are the closest Bar nods his assent and grabs his go bag.
"Right....sounds like we got hostiles, maybe crystalline. I might get to see how this sonic pistol might do against crystals. It was an upgrade to the tactical pistol I had been using."
As they start running (probably trudging with all the snow....) to the location, Bar grins at Croaker. "Didn't your little ysoki mama tell you not to run with sharp objects....you could put your--or somebody else's--eye out."
Though as he says that, Bar does pull out his sonic pistol.
|
|
As they start running (probably trudging with all the snow....) to the location, Bar grins at Croaker. "Didn't your little ysoki mama tell you not to run with sharp objects....you could put your--or somebody else's--eye out."Though as he says that, Bar does pull out his sonic pistol.
As Croaker runs and breathes heavily he responds
"It's not that I will trip or something..." and he trips slamming his knife into the ground.
He gets up and grabs his rifle putting sheath on the knife to not stab himself. He barks to Bar
"Wipe that smug smile off your face!" and continue to run.
|
|
Bar does his absolute best not to smile....but his face is very catlike...so you have seen that often his face seems to smile....
"You didn't trip Croaker, there was a deep spot of snow. It wasn't because you have two left paws."
With that Bar does give Croaker a smile that quickly turns serious. "We better put our serious faces on....we are effectively running into a trap if the enemy is smart, they have to know that Naveret or somebody should have called in for reinforcements. Be prepared for an ambush."
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.
|
|
Ceolor peers a the pictures and other things that have been pointed out and nods at each appreciatively, "Right that is a black dragon... interesting. I'll see about getting it pried off! That'd bee fun to bring back."
At the call for help, Ceolor picks up his tools slowly puts them away, waving for everyone else to move ahead. After a few seconds he catches up to the group and then passes them, scouting ahead and then coming back every now and then. "I'm not seeing anything here... Wait Croaker did you trip? You've got snow in your ears..."
AS the group gets closer, Ceolor pulls out the space hood of his armor and packs snow on and around it, adding some to his body and trying to hide his exposed red skin as much as possible. He sneaks up to the place waiting on Bar's approval.
|
|
"I'm not seeing anything here... Wait Croaker did you trip? You've got snow in your ears..."
Croaker barks back
"No! I like to shovel snow with my ears! It is like a hobby of mine!"As they arrive at the scene, Ysoki stops breathing heavily.
Croaker picks his gun and looks through his scope to scan the buildings, for signs of bodies, blood and combat.
Croaker takes a few steps away from Bar.
"If the team have fallen I still might be able to stabilize them. "
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.
Baur 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 Croaker notices 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.
|
|
Croaker walks looking closely at the snow, using his camera he transmits the video to his ally on Absalom Station
"Any insight?"
"Guys, if you look at the footprints they lack flesh. It is like the print was made by a feet made of bone. That leads me to believe that they are undead probably mostly made of bone."
Ysoki goes on all fours and smells the track with his nose.
"Smell like undead!"
"Some of the enemies dragged two bodies away, while the rest followed the rest of the team. I hate to say that, but we should follow the still fighting group. On the field, you need to assess who you can save and who is beyond saving. I believe we can't help Iko." Croaker is visibly brought down by this.
|
|
Croaker recalls
"They said ...crystals jutting out all over the place..." He picks up one of the crystals and checks if it is magical.
His eyes again begin to emanate light as he speaks softly. After a moment he blinks as his eyes focus on the reality at hand, and adds
"The logbook was speaking of crystal mines that stopped responding, something must have happened there. I doubt that the crystals showing in here is a coincidence."
If he felt no magic in the crystals Croaker would take one for further investigation.
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.”
Obo notices a couple of shapes converging on your location...
Obozaya
Bar
Croaker
Cesar
Ceolor
ENEMY
R1
Bar
Ceo
Cesar
Obo
ENEMY
Baur puts a well placed shot in that the skeleton never anticipated!
R1
Bar - acted
Ceo
Cesar
Obo
ENEMY
R 10
O
Cesar starts summoning.
R1
Bar - acted
Ceo
Cesar - acted
Obo
ENEMY
R 10
O
Obo closes the distance and strikes the already damaged skeleton - which crumbles under the assault.
The enemy skeleton moves in on Cesar!
Attack vs KAC
Damage
R1
Croaker
R2
Bar
Ceo
Cesar
Obo
ENEMY
R Dead
O
The projectile hits home, shattering bone!
R1
Croaker - attacked
R2
Bar
Ceo
Cesar
Obo
ENEMY
R Dead
O 5
Bar tricks the creature - the sonic effect seeming particularly effective!
O 17
|
|
Ceolor pauses as sees the crystal growing in Cailis's leg, curious as to what might be fueling and causing it to expand and take over like that. He then catches sight of the skeletons and goes off on a wild flurry of mental speculation, but seems to just freeze to the outside world. A good 8 seconds later he finally realizes that the group is actually under attack and springs into action. He pulls out his 'rifle' and takes aim, trying to drain any possible residual heat from the last remaining skeleton.
And just like that - Ceolor puts in a final shot - dropping the last Skeleton!
Cailis looks relieved, but winces as the crystal embedded in her wound pulses and grows slightly.
Croaker moves Cailis into a better spot to examine the wound. The crystal appears to be deeply embedded into her flesh and growing - creating more crystaline structures under the skin,
With the increased light, Croaker spots a panel on the side of the crate Cailis is resting upon - investigation leads to a note in a Triaxian dialect!