The machine rocks back with the force of Zelvin's spellshot, then quickly skitters up to him.
One of its claws shoots out, aiming a needle at his neck, but with a gesture from Hekau, Zelvin simply vanishes from sight.
Tyn
Shesik
Xaerai
Hekau
Zelvin
Zelvin braces himself to take the machine's needle-claw, and is pleasantly surprised to suddenly become invisible. He steps back from the enemy and prepares to shoot it again before the others charge into the room.
With a growl Shesik bares her claws and gracefully slides into the room. ”Xaerai, get it between us!” With a cry to her companions, she rolls to avoid the robot’s needled claws. Getting behind it, she swipes out with a claw of her own.
Xaerai follows hard on Shesik's heels, juking left when the robot-hunter lunges right. Keeping her shield up and her steps quick, the dwarf throws a vicious kick up at the medibot's center.
Hekau has not much that he can do at the moment. He draws and loads his crossbow, hoping for a clearer shot next round.
Zelvin calls out to his brother. "Is that thing repairing itself? What sort of contraption is that, and what do you reckon it's saying?"
"Sometimes, you just gotta take a swing at the heathens!"
Zelvin and Shesik both strike true, punching through the drone's armored shell and drawing...well, not blood, but some kind of important black liquid. Still, even damaged it's quite dangerous, and it leaves a bloody furrow along Xaerai's flank when she tries to finish it off.
It swipes after Xaerai again, but she easily evades the blow as she recovers into a defensive stance.
Tyn
Shesik
Xaerai
Hekau
Zelvin[/b]
Watching the robots vital fluids mix with Xaerai’s, Shesik growls furiously and swipes repeatedly with her own claws. ”Don’t you go after them you hideous collection of scrap!”
Zelvin shoots another force bullet at the strange contraption, ducking and weaving as he tries to get a clear shot.
"Not this time!" Xaerai deflects the robot's slash with her shield and counters with an overhead hammerhand with her gauntleted fist.
Hekau fires his crossbow, then steps back and reloads.
"So much for improving my batting average..."
"Strrrrrike two!"
Another message in the same soothing tones takes a disturbing turn as Shesik, Zelvin, and Xaerai batter the machine into scrap. It slumps to the ground, repeating the same unintelligible syllable over and over again for several seconds before winding down like a musical clockwork toy.
The room falls silent.
Giving one last kick to the pile of scrap before her, Shesik glances around the now quiet room. ”Ok. So we found this thing and the blood trail, but where’s the bleeder ?”
"Good question, Shesik. The trail stops here, no body though. No idea if that's good or bad but this place doesn't make me optimistic." She glances over to Hekau and Zelvin, self-conscious about her choice of words. "Sorry, fellas."
To make herself useful, she helps the others check for clues or anything of use.
Metal desks sit to the north and south of this long room, yet the most distinctive features are a pair of odd, bedlike tables flanked by curving panels of blinking, pulsing lights. Moving armatures of metal extend out over the beds, each outfitted with glowing panes of glass and strangely glowing tools.
Hekau goes over to inspect the beds, trying to determine if there were figures in them recently.
The trail ends here, but even a casual inspection of the beds tells you some of the blood was shed relatively recently. As Hekau approaches for a closer look, however, the machinery above it lurches into motion, appendages reaching out for him. Mercifully, its reach its quite short.
Zelvin leaps to Hekau's side, himself momentarily distracted by helplessly examining the blood trail, and he pulls his android brother back before the machinery can harm him. "Light o' Brigh! These damned machines!" he swears, and he quickly scans the controls looking for a way to turn it off, or else sabotage it so that it stops working.
"Y'want me to shoot it?" Xaerai eyes the flailing machinery warily from her spot by the far wall.
"Perhaps we can try to deactivate it in a manner that is not destructive. These machines are intended to heal, I believe, and we may have need of such capabilities if we can restore them to their proper functioning order.
Shesik, can you get close enough to disable them?"
He will join Zelvin in looking for an 'off' switch or apparent power supply.
Zelvin and Hekau find a panel that may have, once upon a time, been used to control the devices. Unfortunately, it and its internal components are half-melted slag. Turning them off won't be anything as simple as flipping a switch, but the investigation leads to a loose wire that sends sparks flying.
Hekau will share his findings with Shesik. He knows that she is far more skilled than he at such tasks, although perhaps another set of hands can be useful.
"Shesik, will you permit me to assist you in deactivating this machine?"
If she agrees, he will Aid Another on the Disable Device check.
”Yeah, sure.” With some help from Hekau, Shesik puts down her pack and takes a quick moment to disconnect the power to the arms above the beds.
”Could these things actually have done what they’re designed for and patched up someone or something that they found unconscious and bleeding?” She asks, looking between Zelvin and Hekau.
There’s got to be some reason the blood trail stops here but there are no bodies.
Zelvin shakes his head in wonder. "Suppose it's possible. If Mister Khonnir or someone else got dragged here and then these machines put them back together, might be they would have let them leave. But then again, they attacked us as soon as we entered, so why wouldn't they have attacked anyone else who was here and tried to get up?"
"There's always the possibility of them incurring damage enough to send them into a state of berserker malfunction after the passage of your father and his party-or simply reprogrammed for that matter. Muddling over suppositions seems moot at this point, as the facts, though they may remain as yet unknown to us, simply are what they are. Maybe they will reveal themselves as we progress..."
"Might be someone really was stitched up here, then moved? That was an awful lot of blood though..."
Zelvin sighs. "Well, I reckon we keep looking in the nearby rooms. Maybe Mis-- ah, the survivors-- didn't get far?"
"Xaerai, that clunking catastrophe winged you pretty bad!"
Tyn takes a quick assessment of Zelvin and Hekau to make sure he didn't miss anything,
"Shesik and Miss X gather around me."
When Shesik moves over to Tyn, he makes a few deft movements as he takes out a small vial-he then flips it point-blank at Xaerai and it erupts into a celestial glow emanating from the Dwarf and showering over any adjacent ally.
As the splash of healing magic washes over Shesik an odd look passed behind her mismatched eyes. A strange mix of suspicion, resentment, and honest gratefulness flashes across her features. ”Thanks Horns, but I don’t know if we’re out of the woods just yet. Who knows what’ll be jumping at us from behind the next door.”
"I've had worse--er, I mean to say, thanks Tyn." Xaerai accepts the healing, then sighs. "To think this place has been down here all along, since before the town was built. Gives me the creeps."
Hekau does not get "the creeps." Ever. When he hears Xaerai's comment, he silently thinks Why should the age of this structure be a cause for alarm?
At Shesik's comment, he replies, "Indeed. That is why I prefer to open doors from a distance whenever possible. The range of my enchantment may not be beyond the maximum jumping distance of all possible foes, but it should provide adequate protection against many."
It is clear that Hekau takes Shesik's concern quite literally.
Zelvin nods, a suspicious look on his face. "Yeah, I don't think we're the only folks down here, never mind the malfunctionin' machines and the four-armed monster people. Seems to me that skulk lady Sef said there was a large group of humans, orcs, and ratfolk led by a woman with purple hair that came in a different way. Maybe the fact we ain't seen any of them yet is a good thing, but I'm worried all the same. If Mister Khonnir was here, I'd hope he hasn't run afoul of them instead of findin' us."
"Exactly, Shesik. It seemed, though, the severity of the wound Xaerai took, compounded by the fractionalized lingering detriment you and I were biding was about the equivalent to what I am capable of curing on the upper end."
Tyn shrugs,
"I believe the math was right."
This unlit circular room is empty save for a panel of controls on the wall to the northwest. A coil of tubes dangling from the left side of the panel periodically flashes with sparks, while a single square window on the panel blinks with several lines of strange writing.
Deck 3: Science
Deck 2: Crew
Deck 1: Docking
WARNING: Elevator off-line—please contact maintenance!
Zelvin curiously pokes around this small room, tapping against the ceiling and floor. "That sounds hollow," he notes of the ceiling. He also takes a few moments to examine the machinery. "This console thing doesn't seem that hard to fix," he says, "If I took it back to the forge." Unless anyone objects, he removes the connecting wires and pockets it. "I got no idea what those words say," he complains.
Glancing at the pale half-elf, Shesik shrugs. ”If you say so. Guess I can take a look.” She delicately begins disconnecting wires, trying to free the damaged equipment.
With a quick look over her shoulder at Hekau she comments, ”Any luck figuring out what this thing is trying to tell us?”
Hekau translates.
"This circular room is an elevator - a transport between levels of the structure. It is currently nonfunctional.
This Androffan word here is 'deck', as in a vessel. I surmise that this structure is a vessel that came here from another world.
It appears that we are currently on Level 3, the Science deck.
The level above us is Engineering.
The level below us is Crew, and below that is Docking."
"Repairing this device should allow us to explore the vessel more thoroughly once we have finished exploring this deck.
I suggest we try the doors in the southeast next."
"What, like a ship that flies? We're a long way from any seas. And why's it gotta be from another world? Lotta strange people and places out there." Xaerai watches Shesik work with interest--from several steps away.
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"What, like a ship that flies? We're a long way from any seas. And why's it gotta be from another world? Lotta strange people and places out there." Xaerai watches Shesik work with interest--from several steps away.
"Yes, a ship that flies through magical or technological means, or some combination of the two. It has been long since buried, and I do not know if repair would even be possible.
I admit that I lack absolute proof for my conclusion about the vessel's origin, but the weight of the evidence seems compelling.
After a couple minor electrical shocks (that mostly teach her to be cautious), Shesik is able to extract the tube without incident.
"A solid bunch of hypotheses, Hekau..."
"...almost too solid. Gonna have to remember to give that boy a proper baptism when we get the chance!"
"Not saying you're wrong, but what would a bunch of folk from another world want to come to Golarion for? This place ain't exactly friendly, but it doesn't seem like a warship to me. Maybe they were running from something, or looking for something?" After pondering this a moment, the dwarf shrugs. "Well, speculatin' is gettin' us nowhere fast, so we might as well move on. You got what you wanted, Shesik?"
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Carefully sucking her singed fingers, Shesik stows the freed device and looks around. ”Sound theories all around, but none of them tell us where Khonnir went. He has to be around here somewhere.”
Cringing, she thinks to herself, Or at least his body.
Stepping over to the southwest doors she glances over her shoulder at Hekau. ”Might as well keep searching. We should clear out this level before we return to the surface to see about getting this thing repaired.”