The party fires another volley of shots at the remaining instead, battering it. With a mindless compulsion to kill, it ignores the more pressing tactical targets in favor of the elemental in front of it.
The elemental vanishes in a puff of smoke and ash as quickly as it came.
Round 4:
Frinke
Saeron
Tofana
Teka
Drift (Can act twice)
Croaker
Red Undead (-19)
Teka fires a pair of shots, scoring one decent hit. Saeron and Tofana pepper the wall with scorchmarks, but in the confusion from the volley, the undead's instincts are overwhelmed and it takes a shot to the chest from Croaker and Frinke. Frinke's shot is completely ineffective due to the undead's construction, but Croaker leaves a gaping hole. It shudders as it begins to lurch forward for a final attack...
With the previous battle experience in mind Drift levels his gun focuses equipment entirely on the remaining target all in the hope of ending this skirmish quickly.
With one good shot into the undead, Drift levels adjusts his aim to unleash a powerful finishing shot.
Drift locks on and autotargets the remaining pieces of connective tissue, and with a burst of superheated plasma, the undead falls apart in multiple pieces.
The door to the west that was being guarded by the undead is marked as the "Commander's Quarters" and the door to the south reads "Command Center."
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"Another put to rest, but we should keep moving, we certainly made more than enough of a ruckus to draw the creature's attention. The Commander's Quarters might have more information to explain where we are or where this creature came from."
"Also, someone may wish to take hold of the cryorifle Croaker found. It might work better than your own Frinke if we need to deal with more of these poor souls."
Teka leads the way and searches the door to quarters for a few moments before opening it.
Though the northern half of this room is a collapsed mass of rocks and mangled building materials. The southern half remains intact and contains a bed and a computer workstation with a padded chair. In the partially collapsed northeast corner of the room, about midway up the wall, is the entrance to a naturally formed crawl space through the debris that winds out of sight to the north.
The computer appears to still be functional.
On the desk lies a partially disassembled weapon, likely the sidearm of whoever once inhabited this office.
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"Oh yes, this is a well aged system. Let me just bypass these systems and find what they left here."
Teka slowly gets to work at the data entry as she taps out commands onto the system.
"I'm not finding any more lore or explanation why they were here, but this computer does have a number of commands just lying about for controlling the defensive robots here, not the one hunting us down mind you, but others we haven't had the pleasure of meeting just yet. If I had a few minutes I could use the information and shut them down."
Drift moves back to the previous room and tries to harvest some crystals.
Following the manual it's not particularly difficult to remove the crystals. Even distracted by the constant worry of impending nanite hulking doom, Drift manages to secure them.
Teka goes through the computer system and begins to shut down each of the sentinel robots in turn. Once they are offline she notices that in their present state, they could be rebooted and set to receive commands from another computer.
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"Oh this is just wonderful," muses Teka as she types out commands. "I believe I found a small bit of misstep in the memory here. If I just set up just a bit here I can weave in the system to override their commands. Just wonderful."
Teka takes her small datapad and connects into the system, binding the commands to her computer with a few more moments of effort. "Does anyone wish to help keep the defenses settled and properly directed? I'm certainly happy to keep hold if it, we shouldn't need it for long."
"With that, there is only that pistol here we might want to patch together and then to the Command Center. I will admit I'm surprised that we haven't seen the horrid thing in an age as it were."
While Teka finishes rerouting the robot controls, Saeron tends to her compatriots wounds. This time, she is able to get enough time in for some quick bandaging, although Tofana's focus on fixing up her new weapon results in a few misplaced bandages. Worried about staying put for more than a few minutes, Croaker opens the door deeper into the facility as soon as the last bandage is applied... and is greeted to the sight of a robot standing at attention with a firearm trained on the doorway. He nearly jumps, but after a moment it's clear that the robot is stationary... and waiting for commands.
This large room has computers lining the east and west walls. A raised platform rests in the middle of the room, surrounded by a waist-high metal railing. A computerized table studded with blank view-screens and blinking indicator lights sits atop the raised area. Suspended above the table is the flickering holographic image of a map of Thosum V. A double door made of heavy steel is slightly ajar along the southern wall. A cool
breeze occasionally blows though the partially open door.
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While the others utilise their technological and mechanical skills, Saeron takes a moment to tend to the injured. "Teka, your healing kit looked better stocked than my own - could I please borrow it while you're busy there?"
"Oh, of course you may. I have my hands full and it would be a delight to get ourselves a little more tended to while we have the moment."
Entering the room Teka moves to examine the robot and triple check that the command bindings she set up are all set and proper.
A few brief commands gets the robot walking in a circle. Looks like it's fully under your control.
Spike takes a look at the door. It is a massive double door more akin to a blast door or airlock than a normal facility door, quite similar to the one you passed through at the entrance. It is sleightly ajar, and apparently unlocked, but attempting to command it open causes it to quiver rather than open. As it does, an error message flashes across the terminal that Tofana is standing at. “South Exterior Door Damaged: Reboot Required” It seems as though the actuators for the door are out of sync and half of them are trying to close while the other half are trying to open. Saeron looks for a way to get the viewscreens online, but other than the glitching map of Thosum V, nothing else appears to be functinoing.
As Tofana gets to work on the doors, the lights begin to flicker... and a faint familiar buzz slowly begins again.
Initiative:
Round 1-???: Something's coming!
Sentry Robot (Present command: Halt)
Frinke
Croaker
Saeron
Tofana (Operating the computer)
Drift
Teka
Croaker lingers nervously around the door as Tofana works the console. He wiggles it to try to get enough gap to slide through, but it's stuck pretty tight with barely enough of an opening to get his little ysoki claws through.
Precombat Prep Rounds with HP/SP status:
Sentry Robot (Present command: Halt)
Frinke (16 HP, Moving into position, can place yourself anywhere in final room)
Croaker (15 SP, Fiddling with the door)
Saeron (0 SP)
Tofana (12 HP / 0 SP, Operating the computer)
Drift
Teka (1 SP, Armed and wielding the robot controls)
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Drift quickly checks that he has a fresh battery in his Plasma Fork.
"We should be careful. If we can't get this door open we have one way out if it attempts to block our way. Think we can break get it open without a reboot?" he says while keeping his eyes open and looking over his shoulder to assist Croaker in anyway he can.
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"Oh that is a bother isn't it. I don't think we found the tools to fight it and our only hope is to distract it while the system reboots. I dare say that we don't have the ability to stand against it, so we should fall back, try to obscure it's vision, and draw attention with the robot here. We can't give it the chance to even take one swipe at us."
Teka spends a few moments polishing some of the robotic drone's subroutines as the buzzing sound fills the air.
"If we don't have the time, we may need to lure it away still, but we might need to be flexible on our plans. Frinke, you shouldn't be out there though, it would be dangerous if it cut off that exit."
Drift looks over the door and determines that while forcing it open without a reboot is possible, wrestling against the electromagnetic actuators in addition to the wear and tear of time and dust would be quite a feat of strength... although he does notice that there is enough dirt and rust in the doorframe that if the interior is anywhere in the same ballpark, some muscle may be needed even if the door does begin to open normally.
Croaker begins to push at the door ineffectively when suddenly, the buzz begins to get louder and louder, and nanites begin to trickle into the room from the conduits.
The console blinks from 95% to Reboot Successful and returns to a command shell with a list of commands, including Reboot, Open, Close, Lock, Unlock and present status listed as Unlocked, Closed.
Round 1:
Sentry Robot
Frinke (16 HP)
Croaker (15 SP)
Saeron (0 SP)
Tofana (12 HP / 0 SP, Operating the computer)
Horrifying Nanite Monstrosity of Absolute Devastation (Presently not visible)
Drift
Teka (1 SP, Has robot controls)
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Saeron licks her lips nervously as the buzzing increases in intensity.
They're all going to die! the inner voice goads, laughing. You're ALL going to die!
"Not now," she murmurs, looking around the room. "I'm busy."
"Well, no luck in finding that secret stash of ssarlithine," Saeron says to her companions, crouching behind the meagre shelter of the table and readying her laser pistol. "Cold to slow it, fire to hurt it?"
"I'll be ready to call in another ally when the thing appears - hopefully bigger this time..."
She glances around toward the malfunctioning doors. "I wonder..."
Tofana quickly types 'open' which kicks off a whirring sound from the door's actuators.
Saeron approaches the door and feels the air. Unfortunately while the air outside feels cold, it is nowhere near what the facility felt like when you first came in and is not likely to slow down this horror one bit.
Round 1:
Sentry Robot
Frinke (16 HP)
Croaker (15 SP)
Saeron (0 SP)
Tofana (12 HP / 0 SP, can still move)
Horrifying Nanite Monstrosity of Absolute Devastation (Presently not visible)
Drift
Teka (1 SP, Has robot controls)
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"We need to consider it a real possibility," Saeron replies to Tofana, looking around at her battered and weary companions. "If the robot and my ally can't slow it and you get that door open..." She shrugs.
With the buzzing and imminent arrival of the thing, Saeron closes her eyes and initiates the ritual to call a creature from the elemental planes.
Saeron begins to summon additional defenses a Frinke marches into the room and raises his rifle to shoot at Teka's newest line of defense. After a quick warning he jerks and fires a wild shot at the floor.
As expected... and dreaded... the nanites begin to flood out of the conduits connecting up to the northeastern console and reform the massive hulk of a war machine and begins to drift forward, nanite whip in hand.
The door actuators begin to whirr louder and louder... and start making a grinding noise. The door only manages to open an inch and a half before getting stuck. Fortunately this time, the door's mechanisms are workign with you rather than against you, but it's going to take some muscle to get it to budge.
Round 1:
Drift
Teka (1 SP, Has robot controls)
Round 2:
Sentry Robot
Frinke (16 HP)
Croaker (15 SP)
Saeron (0 SP)
Tofana (12 HP / 0 SP)
Horrifying Nanite Monstrosity of Absolute Devastation
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"We may well need to fall back, but for now I hope the door may open before our inhospitable host finds us. We should be ready run as soon as it opens, but be quick on our paws as it were if things don't go our way."
She is clearly on edge as she readies the datapad to command the security robot and has a start as the bullet flies at the construct. Teka holds her hand to her chest to settle herself as she sees it is Frinke. "Oh, well bless your heart, you sweet summer's lad." "It has been an awfully long day, please don't make it any longer putting holes into our friendly drone. I'm certain the nanite threat will already handle that well enough."
With a nod to Croaker, Teka commands the sentry into position next to the door and use it's ancient mechanical system to force the door open. "You are right that this piece of lovely tech has more power than a lot of us. I'll try to get this opened quickly."
Teka puts trust in Saeron's summon to draw the beasts attention while the robot deals with the door.
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Saeron finishes her ritual and opens her eyes. A small spark once again flickers beside the nanite creature, except this time, as it unfolds with a whoosh, the fiery creature formed is a little larger in scale.
The lashunta purses her lips. "A little better, I suppose."
She then runs toward the door, lending her slight frame and what strength she has to opening the door.
The summoned fire elemental takes in its surroundings. Seeing the monstrosity towering above it, the fiery creature joins its fists together, interlocking its fingers, and attempts to pound the nanite creature.