"Door? What'r ya talkin' 'bout?"
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As she gets closer to the door she spotted, Never realizes it's mostly barricaded by trash. It's funny, but this is exactly what she was doing before she joined Starfinders; going through other people's garbage. Apparently, nothing had changed.
"That door," she points for Lorne and the others.
She looks around for anything that could be used to push the junk out of the way more easily than picking through it by hand.
The dwarf looks at the plate, Never, and the weapon. "I'd rather work on t'is," pointing at the rifle.
Frowning he goes to take the plate, and then draws up short. "Wait. Where's yours?"
”I’d take it as a personal favor if you kept working on my rifle—I’ll dig for both of us,” responds Zephyr, leaving his primary weapon in Lorne’s hands.
Grabbing the largest ‘shovel’, Zephyr gets to work with gusto.
Jaeric squints up towards the cable they tried to climb down. "I don't like our chances of getting back up there," he shares, "So, digging and clearing that door seems like a better route. Maybe it'll get us into the bowels of this outpost faster anyway?" After resting a bit, he crawls over the trash and joins Zephyr to start shoveling.
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At least there aren't too many fragrant organics in the trash. That's about the best that can be said about the digging. It's hard work. Components in the trash have been intertwined and compacted making it difficult to pierce the surface with your improvised shovels and when you do you often have to lift heavy chunks.
An hour and a half later you've cleared space for a person to crouch beside the door and reach a small access panel in the doorjamb.
(Constructed: +2 versus poison, disease, sleep, mind affecting. No breathing or vacuum related effects)
As they clear the access panel enough to see it, Lorne begins working to unlock it remotely, using his exocortex.
"Whew! That...took a bit longer than I'd have liked," Jaeric wipes the sweat from his brow after heaving aside one more chunk of trash, "But, hopefully this gets us into the lower levels of this vault and closer to the artifact so we can go home..."
He sits down to take a drink from his canteen while the others apply their technical skills to the sealed portal.
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A wave of nausea sweeps the party again while they dig and Never works on the door. She thinks she almost has it, but needs another hand to hold down a relay contact while she completes a coupled circuit.
The door slides open and trash spills through into the large, tall room beyond. The area near the door is bare floor and walls. Three large tubes drop from near the ceiling then angle downward across the bare portion of the room to penetrate the north wall.
Beyond the pipes is a factory floor. Thick clouds of black smoke belch forth from oil-soaked machinery that sprawls throughout this factory. The machinery wheezes and clanks in a jarring cacophony while it gouts thick, greasy smoke that fills this area to a height of 20 feet. A short whiff of the smoke induces coughing.
The machinery isn't just on the floor. Through small gaps in the smoke you dimly glimpse manipulator arms and other devices that line the wall and face inward toward a towering staircase-like arrangement of conveyor belts. The lowest conveyor belt has parted and lies like a dirty fallen sash draped over the lowest rank of machinery. A ladder upward has likewise collapsed.
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"Looks like nobody's bothered to check on this junk for years. What's the point of processing garbage when the processing equipment is also garbage?" If there's a point to her meanderings, it goes unspoken.
Never enters the room and looks around before proceeding to open the door at the far end. She assumes her companions follow her inside, because what else would they do.
"What is this, a secure storage? Locked doors everywhere we go . . .."
Zephyr follows silently, but his augmented artillery laser is primed and ready as he scans for threats while they walk…
Jaeric looks around at all the smoke and debris. "Definitely seems in ill repair. Something must have happened here. This isn't at all how the other izalguuns described the place, though they admitted they'd lost contact with it. I wonder if that alien ship that attacked us over Icefront visited here, as well. Could explain some of the damage and the locked down security. Of course, that also would beg the question of what they came here for...and, if it's the artifact, we may have some competition in retrieving it. So, let's press on and see what else we can learn."
Putting action behind his own words, Jaeric casts a spell to hopefully reveal any magical emanations, as well.
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The engineers quickly get the door open while Zephyr stands guard and Jaeric speculates. The door opens onto a short hallway. The far end is clogged with rubble and there are deposits of stone fallen from the ceiling or walls throughout the corridor. An unlikely muddy stream flows from an open doorframe to your right, across the hall and out two ruptures in the southern wall.
"Yep. Real garden spot we've found, here. Wanna try t' rubble, t' cracks t' stream's flowin' out, 'r t' door t' stream's comin' from?" It ALMOST sounds like an actual question. There's not really much doubt it wasn't, though.
"Let's keep moving," says Zephyr, heading in through the open doorway to the right.
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Zephyr leads the way to the righthand doorway.
A drone of insects echoes around this technological swampland. Water floods most of this room, flowing out through a shattered door to the south. Stunted fungi protrude from the water’s surface atop twisted metal shelves and broken technology.
Catwalks around the room skim the swamp’s surface, each coated with slime. The ceiling soars 40 feet above the water. At the north end of the room stands a glowing golden obelisk, resting atop a pile of fragmented golden items.
The catwalks are difficult terrain, and increase the DC for Acrobatics checks attempted on them by 5.
Zephyr gets to the top of the steps and watches carefully as Never flies in. He especially watches the surface of the water for any evidence of threats.
"Surprised t' place has kept atmo given how much damage has been done, and how long ago it looks ta have happened." He watches for surprises along with Z-4.
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Never flies over the pool and touches down by the golden pile.
Zephyr's distracted by the water. It looks cool and inviting. The android is pleasantly surprised to find that stairs descend into the pool. He takes a few steps down until he's chest deep. His attention focuses on a single flying insect.
Never bends forward to examine the obelisk.
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Never bends over at the waist, peering closely at the absolutely smooth surface of the elegantly tapering rod.
Suddenly the water beside Never erupts with a deafening croaking sound. Immediately after it, another surfaces in front of Zephyr. They're izalguuns, but their features are distorted. Their skin has fist-sized bumps and looks loose and thin, rather than the leathery appearance you're used to.
"Enemies!" warns Zephyr as he engages his armor's powerful fists against the red mutant izalguun.
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Zephyr lands two crushing punches lift the creature off its feet. It slips momentarily beneath the surface before sweeping its arms and rearing out of the water again.
Never's lash bites deep, but the biggest creature is still intent on attacking. It grabs a stanchion of the platform railing and draws itself toward her.
The eruption of enemies from the water took Jaeric aback, not because of the lack of warning, but rather it was the appearance of the strange izalguuns. Were these supposed to be actual guardians of the decrepit storage facility? Or had something gone terribly wrong with both the guardians and the vault as well? Seeing Zephyr and Never leap into the fight snaps him out of his musings and he focuses his attention on the biggest creature that's still attacking, trying to assault its mind to slow it down.
"Try and bring down the big one first! It's the bigger threat!" he calls out to everyone.
"Know t'ey don't look right, but aren't we s'ppos'd ta be workin' wit' t'ese guys?"
Even as he provides the mild complaint, Lorne attempts to contribute to pacifying the larger one, as instructed.
”If they weren’t foes before, they are now,” says Zephyr, thinking on his threat response and initial assumption of hostility…Then all his processing capability was focused on dodging any return attacks…
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Lorne's shot to the head stops the mutant izalguun dead as it rears above Zephyr. It collapses back into the water. The android gets a moment to breathe, but the third creature is already heading his way. It dives below the water. You can just trace its wake through the murk, and then its head emerges from the water. Something glances off Zephyr's armor just under his left arm and recoils. An instant later he realizes that it attacked with its tongue.
... B plus grab)
If the creature hits with the indicated attack (usually a claw or bite attack), it deals the normal damage. If the attack roll result equals or exceeds the target’s KAC + 4, the creature also automatically grapples the foe. (If it equals or exceeds the target’s KAC + 13, the creature instead pins the target.) The creature doesn’t need to have a spare limb free to perform this grapple as long as it can make the listed attack, and it can potentially grapple more than one target if it has more than one attack with the grab ability. The creature can maintain the grab either with another successful grab attack or by performing the grapple combat maneuver normally.
You are restrained by a creature, effect, or trap. You can’t move, and you take a –2 penalty to your Armor Class, attack rolls, Reflex saving throws, initiative checks, and Dexterity-based skill and ability checks, except those made to grapple your opponent in turn or to escape a grapple (see Grapple on page 246). In addition, you can’t take actions that require two hands (or other limbs) to perform. You can’t make attacks of opportunity.
You can’t use Stealth to hide from the creature grappling you, even if a special ability allows you to hide when you normally couldn’t. If you become invisible, through a spell or other ability, you gain a +2 circumstance bonus to your check to escape being grappled, but you receive no other benefit.
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Meanwhile, at the other end of the pool...
The big mutant doesn't try to climb the railing, but its tongue flashes out. It impacts hard enough to push Never back a step, then it loops over her arm, and tugs her toward the creature as it rises out of the water.
You can’t use Stealth to hide from the creature grappling you, even if a special ability allows you to hide when you normally couldn’t. If you become invisible, through a spell or other ability, you gain a +2 circumstance bonus to your check to escape being grappled, but you receive no other benefit.
... B plus grab)
Not wanting to follow the creature into deep water in order to reach it, Zephyr takes a few careful steps back up the stairs to get more elevation and draws a bead on the boss creature grappling Never.
"They don't appear to be in their right minds...or forms..." Jaeric responds, "I've never seen any of them with tongues like that. Don't get dragged into the water!" He then casts another spell targeting the one assaulting Zephyr.
"Focus fire on this one so we can help Never!"