”Welcome Atharvaveda, Iteration-177 vouches for you, though he asks Ms Whiteangel join him at the Tower of Shadows,” volunteers Zephyr in a businesslike manner.
Jaeric looks sidelong at Alison and quirks an eyebrow. "This seems a bit irregular," he notes aloud, "But it might help if a member of our team keeps an eye on our patron while lending a hand in whatever they're pursuing in one of the other towers. Alison? If you have no objections..."
Once Whiteangel indicates her acceptance, he nods and turns back to Atharvaveda. "I'm not sure how much Iteration-177 knew about Albryan's bargain. We're essentially here to deal with two problems. One is some viral-infected robots that seem to have run amok. The other is an escaped predator-plant called a ksarik, which we've been asked to subdue and return to its cage. Can you give us some insight into your capabilities so we know how to integrate you into the team?"
Veda watches intently, her tongue flicking out several times.
As the half-elf addresses her, she turns to him with unblinking eyes.
Yeah that's exactly what Iteration-177 told me. Get rid of some robots out of control then take care of a ksarik. They didn't say return to a cage though.
She seems to smirk.
Probably can be done as well.
Are you a team leader here? Mh you look like a talker. I'm more in the shooting, magic and science department. she says padding her plasma bolter.
Should we shoot those robots or try to hack them and get rid of the virus? I can go both ways. Also fly some ships and analyze alien tech.
"I think I 'member our hosts sayin' the critter needs to be unharmed, but the 'bot's 'r' toast."
Veda gives the dwarf a confused look.
Why would you turn robots into a form of bread? Is that a form of magic you mastered?
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Jaeric looks sidelong at Alison and quirks an eyebrow. "This seems a bit irregular," he notes aloud, "But it might help if a member of our team keeps an eye on our patron while lending a hand in whatever they're pursuing in one of the other towers. Alison? If you have no objections..."
..."
"Ingratiate myself with the super rich science sponsor? I'll take one for the team. See you around?"
Alison nods to Veda and asks, "Where'd you leave your car?"
The dwarf puts a hand over his face for a moment. "Jest burn 'em 'n' move on, 'k?"
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The reconstituted party continues to ascend the stairs. Some floors are very typical library, but one looks like a zoological exhibition. Transparent walls contain a 20 meter diameter patch of forest under story. Thumb-sized insects move among the ferns, grasses, and leaf litter. Occasionally they light up in patterns that look like pixelated symbols, letters, or runes.
Mh, burning. Ah i get it! You mean then they look like burned bread! Rather curious. I prefer my plasma bolter here.
Veda has the rifle ready in her hands while she moves forward with you.
Is this where the robots are or the plant? Do you have any plan on how to catch that plant? How big is it even? And is it hostile?
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On the way up you pass several curious sights.
A large room with an enormous slumbering gold dragon chained to the floor and receiving an IV drip.
A room filled with cacophonous noise created by hundreds of instruments played all at once by miniature robots.
A room filled with ancient books, each bound with a cover made from a different type of skin.
A room with a dozen scrimshaw drawings, each carved into the 6-foot-long tooth of some gigantic beast.
On the robot orchestra floor, the tenth, the stairway along the outer wall stops and four smaller spiral stairways continue the ascent. The trail of acid drops follows the north staircase upward.
On the twelfth floor pallid green light fills this area. Ten large glass containers, each filled with translucent green slime, are arranged in a half square in the middle of the room. Scrolls of parchment float lazily inside the slime of each container.
This room holds the Scrolls of Cizoh, 10 strips of parchment
found floating in a sea of slime on a distant moon.
Two robed humanoids constructed of brass and silver with visible clockwork mechanisms inside them. wait in the center of this room One of their arms ends in a vicious blade, while the other is an intricate clockwork re-creation of a hand.
Mh rolls of slime. Weird stuff. Can you imagine living in slime?
She looks around the room her bolter ready.
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The two humanoid constructs pivot toward the party.
"Inferior organic beings."
"No doubt drawn here by the grandeur of our knowledge repository."
"But are they suppilcants and servitors or vile despoilers?"
"We shall soon have the truth."
They step toward the party.
"Organic beings, prostrate yourselves before the mechanical magnificence of Ourselves! Then you may approach on hands and knees to petition Us for your desires."
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Never almost laughs, but instead, she gets on her hands and knees as instructed. She crawls over to the nearest lore warden.
"Oh magnificent mechanical ones!" She starts dramatically. "Possessors of unlimited knowledge! We have endured many trials to reach you, such as icky bathroom carpet, an arrogant rich guy and his pretentious glow in the dark spaceship, and seasonal allergies." She slowly stands while gesturing to the abundance of flora.
"It is a relief that you should ask our desires. We are humbled, I'm sure. And now that I've come to you like a dog, I do have one desire; I'm gonna take a bite outta your leg."
With a flick of the wrist, her taclash whips around the metal monstrosity.
vs KAC+8
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Never's flattery and obsequious approach lull the warden's suspicions. Her sudden strike comes as a complete surprise. Her whip bites deeply into one's shoulder joint. It reacts immediately with a thrust of the blade at the end of its left arm. Both it and it's companion erupt into a fusillade of pronouncements.
" A deceiver! A despoiler! Kill her! Our majesty demands it. Inferior beings can not be allowed to upset their superiors...." Their words come faster and faster in a barely intelligible blur of confusing sound.
The second lore warden raises its empty hand and as it swings the tarm forward in a throwing motion, a translucent book appears and hurls toward Zephyr. The book strikes the android and ricochets into Jaeric, , off the wall behind him, then into Veda, a glass case, Lorne, the wall in front of Lorne, past Zephyr and into Royo in the stairwell.
"Ooof!" Royo whimpers. The between gritted teeth says, "I think their elbow and knee joints will be susceptible to to blows out of their plane of motion. Lateral force on the joints may disable them."
Initiative:
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Grandiose Proclamations (Su) The lore warden shouts an unnerving constant stream of delusional grandeur. Each creature within 120 feet of the lore warden that can hear it must succeed at a DC 15 Will saving throw at the start of their turn or become off-target for one round. This is a mind-affecting, sense-dependent effect.
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Never's head swims with silly ideas about the splendor of the lore wardens and their "majesty." It's enough that she feels off-kilter, the whip in her hand suddenly a liability. But she has another weapon she can use.
"You metal bozos talk too much!"
The next time she opens her mouth, a cone of intense cold blasts forth, catching both lore wardens.
I'll take a wild guess: those are the virus infected robots? And we use a very traditional anti virus method?
Veda steps to the side to have a better line of sight and aims her plasma bolter at the robot near Never.
What Queen are they talking about? Do they have a Queen here? Majesty is a Queen right?
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Never follows up her whip attack with a blast of freezing air. The lore wardens dodge left and right and the brunt of her breath splits the space between them.
Veda levels her plasma bolter and scores a direct hit on the warden through the tiniest of gaps between the scroll case and Never.
The lore warden's screed continues.
Behind you Royo gasps, "The joints. Remember the joints."
Zephyr steps forward and draws a bead on the robotic warden Never is attacking, trying to block out the nonsense the beings are spouting.
Their incessant babbling is somewhat distracting, but he fires his artillery laser at the weak point of the warden’s neck joint, hoping for a clean kill.
(Penetrating level 1)
"Well, ain't they sweet?"
Lorne moves up, drawing his Tactical Skipshot pistol as he goes. When he gets behind the case, he points his pistol at the one to his left (Green) and says "I choose you!", marking it with the tactical processor in his exocortex.
Jaeric shakes off the babbling stream of words crowding his mind and casts a spell to cause a bit of confusion right back at their enemies. A glowing ball of otherworldly green energy manifests around the robot threating Never, buzzing around the sensors in its faceplate to distract it. He then moves up next to Lorne, drawing a shock grenade from his belt. "Keep them together!" he calls out to the rest of team, "I've got something that might fry their circuits!"
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You robotic foes continue their confusing stream of self-agrandisement. "See how our joint lubrication glistens on the metal. And the specular reflections from our polished frames! So much finer than your diffusely reflecting semi-permeable membranes!"
"Lore Wardens are the highest creation! The universe is now complete! It has acheived its purpose. All lower orders of creatures may worshipfully bask in our glory!"
Never's foe's blade glows a sickly green. The warden rears back, the better to see you with its lolling head. It shakes itself, trying to get away from the obscuring green energy of Jaeric's spell, then lunges bodily forward for a powerful thrust, that harmlessly skims along Never's armor.
The second lore warden moves smoothly to line up as many party members as possible and conjures a second book to throw at you. The book smashes into Never, misses Lorne when he ducks, smacks Jaeric, misses Zephyr, but bounces off the wall to strike Veda.
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Lorne doesn't say anything, though he keeps shaking his head, as he moves out of the concentrated line formation before attempting to shoot the remaining target.
]
Hehe nice hit human.
Veda storms forward and aims her bolter at the left robot.
Zephyr moves to get a clear shot and unloads on the remaining warden!
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Never strikes the warden's head with the flat of her hand. Its whips around ninety degrees and separates from its neck in a splash of sparks. The head tumbles across the room and lands at the foot of a slime tank. Never gracefully steps back from the robot, neatly evading a few random swings of its arms before it collapses to the ground.
Lorne fires on the move, but his shot goes wide. Veda steps forward , but her shot fired past Never's head goes high.
Zephyr moves to a clean line of sight and unloads his laser beam. It strikes with a bright flash and leaves the warden's cloak burnt, and its metal skin scorched.
Seeing Never's warden go down, Jaeric reconsiders using a grenade on just one of them. So, he moves up next to it, looking to use its body for cover while he tries to get a clear shot on the other one. He then aims his autopistol and fires quickly, relying on his spell to keep distracting it.
Unfortunately, his hurry and attempt to avoid Zephyr and Never's line of fire throws off his aim.
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"Incomprehensible blasphemy! Organic life form has ended Timech's reign. Punishment must be swift and severe!"
Its blade trailing green energy, robes fluttering behind, the warden rushes up to Never and lances its blade into her side. Never feels her blood flow out, replaced with pain that spreads radially from the cut. The construct's blank steel face stares into hers coldly.
If you fail the fort save you are also confused for 4 rounds. Since it attacked you, you may attack it back normally on your next turn. (And roll a will save.)
On subsequent turns you can roll a DC 17 Will save to shake the confusion. If you fail roll a d100:
1–25 Act normally.
26–50 Do nothing but babble incoherently.
51–75 Deal 1d8 + Str modifier damage to self with item in hand.
76–100 Attack nearest creature.
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At nearly point-blank range and with a clear field of fire, Zephyr stays where he is and fires off a pair of laser bolts at the warden, aiming for whatever joints look the weakest!
Veda shoots her plasma bolter again.
"Coulda been worse. Hope capturing the critter's as easy!" He moves over to Never. "Let me take a look at that, if you will."
He pulls out his Medkit and goes to treat the injury, if allowed.
"That's one problem down," Jaeric acknowledges, "Really nice job, everyone! Especially, Never. They seemed drawn your way, but you handled them well. We're all a bit scratched up, though. I don't know what kind of magical power they were using, but I still feel a bit woozy from it. It's best we rest before we go looking for the ksarik."
The half-elf takes the time to reload his pistol, sort out his gear, and then checks on everyone's injuries.
Before the team gets ready to move out again, Jaeric pulls aside Zephyr and Lorne. "Any chance either of you can do a quick check on the memory cores of those wardens? If they picked up a virus that caused them to start acting so erratically, our patrons might want a copy of it returned to them. At a minimum, we should probably collect them so they don't get picked up by any other machine that could be infected by it."
”Good idea, Jaeric,” replies Zephyr, assisting In disassembling the wardens and accessing their data core. He then rests and recovers from the fight as well.
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"Nice junk. Good tip, Royo."
"You're very welcome."
The ysoki emerges from the stairwell and gingerly touches his side. "I suppose I should remain farther behind in the future. That was too exciting and painful by half. "Royo is glad for a chance to sit down and gather himself.
A large bronze plaque (the orange rectangle toward the east of the room) with relieved lettering describes the room's contents, the Scrolls of Cizoh, 10 strips of parchment found floating in a sea of slime on a distant moon, and transported here in that same slime. Apparently the 11th scroll disintegrated when its discoverers lifted it from the slime.
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The party strips the lore wardens of their valuable innards, and one decent blade. Lorne determines that to preserve the lore warden's entire memory units, you'll have to connect them to a battery. Their memory will be lost it they are powered down. ALternatively, he is also able to safely isolate and copy an instance of the virus onto his comm unit.
Royo professes that he is ready to move on.
The party begins their ascent again.
Jaeric: -1 RP
Lorne: -8 SP
Veda: -16 SP
Zephyr: -1 RP
Never: -1 RP
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As you climb you can look into more rooms. Once again the exhibits or stacks are often behind forcefields, thick glass, or transparent aluminum. In one of the more remarkable rooms, six alien ghosts are bound within warding circles that glow faintly. In another are hundreds of pots, each containing a different incense. Varied faintly colored plumes rise from the pots. A few of the plumes are even luminous.
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The acid trail leads upward through the Tower of the Oma. Sometimes you lose the trail for a short time, but you always find it again. The eighteenth floor is a winding maze of corridors. Glowing runes line the walls of filling the hallways with orange light. The acid trail leads into the maze.
Echoing faintly from the depths of the maze comes a faint 'pop!' followed immediately by a squeaky trumpeting sound.
Perception:
"Uh, guys? Did someone just get a text message 'r' somethin'?"
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Never has no idea what Lorne is talking about. "I have no idea what you're talking about," she says.
"Why would the Curators create a maze in their library? I mean really. A maze! There was this one time when a couple of spoiled rich human kids thought they could mess around on our turf in the sublevels, like since they had a lot of money they were better than us and could break out s*%% and try to get on me. Well, I wasn't having that cock, and after the gang got through with them we busted into their crib and the little primrose had a secret door where he kept his guns. Not much of a secret when I had my taclash up his ass.
"Anyway, should we keep following the slime trail?"