Swift and silent so she won’t be looked-seen coming, Sylva hides under the contraption and assess the situation.
"Have you ever taken a look-see in the mirror?" Ravenna taunts, punctuating the sentence with a gunshot.
Sir Batman smiles as they enter the mad scientist laboratory. His blue eyes scan the Eerie chamber. Spotting the hanging lab coat, the Champion of Mazludeh waves.
And, you are the weakest link!
The bronze-colored sprite Raises his shield, placing both hands on it, and Syrides 20' closer!
Can a bat do anything a spider can?
Ravenna hits the Looksee Man with her bullet. As she reloads, she remembers that fetchlings are humanoids with shadow ancestry. They blend in with the shadows around them, though not as much as shae. You should have little issues targeting the man.
Sylva escapes the fetchling’s notice as she hides under the pod of the machine.
”Burn! Burn! Burn!” the Looksee Man shouts. He casts a spell, firing a trio of scorching rays at you! Batman avoids one burning beam, but the other two strike Nox and Ravenna.
Sylva ▶️▶️rushes and hurls her rapier!
“Get down here, Spider-Wuss!”
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Nox nearly catches flame completely at the singular bolt of fire and lets out a squeek of pain. The shadows around him contract and his corgi companion begins wimpering again. He points a finger towards the looksee man "You won't hide like Leiko did, but you should surrender too! We don't want to kill anymore."
A series of floating ghostly lights explode into existence in the air of the room and swirl outward to absolutely cover everything causing the shadows in the room to be snuffed out. Meanwhile Nox retreats to a safe distance.
Sir Batman Raises his Shield.
Squinting up at the climbing lab coat, Sir Batman flashes him a grin.
Pew! Pew!
The bronze-colored sprite shoots f+#$ing laser beams out of his freaking beautiful blue eyes!
Blasting beams
He smiles a bit more!
"Ow, @#^*!" Ravenna shouts, ducking back behind the doorway for shelter. She pops out again to fire off another shot and reloads.
Nox's dancing lights fill the room with bright light as the sorcerer retreats. Ravenna shoots the Looksee Man again, while Batman grazes him with a burning laser beam from his eyes. Sylva darts forward under the fetchling and hurls her sword straight up, causing it to sink deep into his belly!
"Argh! You'll pay for that! I will not surrender when I am so close to a breakthrough with my machine! Now, melt!" the Looksee Man shouts. He casts another spell, firing an acid arrow directly into Sylva's chest! He then raises a shield of force in front of himself.
Sylva cries out in pain, her voice as withered and blistered as her body!
“Don’t surrender. Die!”
She whips her other sword at Looksee!
With nothing left to do but hopefully not die, Sylva bolts under the machine!
The acid seems to have come off from her dashing and rolling, but she looks like she lost a layer of skin pretty much everywhere.
She clings to Ravenna’s boot.
“Little help?”
Sir Batman frowns at the labcoat's cowardly position 20' up at the ceiling. The bronze-color sprite then looks at the miniature gray tree with white leaves hangs suspended in the air between the pods, its roots twisting around each pod.
This looks important!
The sprite screams at the Looksee Man, winks, and Strides with murderous intent at the strange tree!
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Nox limps a bit so he can see Sylva bloodied and battered on Ravenna's boot. "Helpful shadows please kiss the wounds of my friend once again." he quietly prayed. The nearby shadows of the room responded and inched across Sylva creating a meshy substance over her torn body to keep her from bleeding out and also managing to fortify her spirit.
The lights in the room however promptly sputtered out.
"No idea if this'll work again, but...here goes!" Ravenna cries, launching Sylva through the air with her boot. She tries to cover the sprite's approach with another shot from her jezail, but the charge misfires and spews out only a puff of black smoke. Cursing, she clears it and loads another.
The Looksee Man shouts in pain as Sylva impales him again, though his shield spell blunts the blow as it shatters. He shrieks with rage as Batman starts attacking his machine, his eyestalks agog. "No! My beautiful creation! Stop it, you brutish bat-buffoon!" He casts a spell and blasts Batman with magic missiles.
Sylva runs along the contraption and leaps at her foe!
She grabs Donkeytail and plunges it deeper into Looksee’s gut before yanking it out!
The Looksee Man screams in agony as Sylva wrenches the sword! He groans and blinks his extended eyes, looking all around the room.
"Alright, alright, I surrender! Just please, do not damage my machine any further!"
Turning his newly tri-colored face to the Looksee man, Sir Batman grinds his teeth!
Any tricks and the shield bosses the machine!
Ravenna says nothing, instead trying to read the Looksee Man for any sign of deception.
Sylva points her bloody sword at Looksee and her thumb at her nearly-melted-off flesh.
“Oooooh, you’re lucky I love Shelyn enough to remember her stance on this sorta thing. But surrender ain’t free and there’s no rule against smashing your machine while sparing your life. So whaddaya got? Healing potions? Information? Other incentives to talk my friends out of breaking everything?”
Ravenna gets the sense that the Looksee Man is willing to die to protect his machine, but that's where his loyalties end.
"Here, you can have my goggles," the fetchling says. As he takes them off of his head, his eyes retract along their optic nerves back into his skull, popping into their proper sockets with a wet splurtch.
He also allows you to take the valuable reagents scattered about the worktables, worth 20 gp in all.
"If you want, I can also put you through my machine! It is my greatest triumph, a biological transfer mechanism! I can combine the defining characteristics from a being in the first pod with another being's in the second pod. You see? You can all be greater than you are now! Wouldn't you like to have a look-see at what you could become?"
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Nox limps around the corner hugging the wall and his burnt flesh. "I don't... think we should... you were going to kill us. And we aren't even here for the pods. Just to stop The slim.. he wants to kill all elves. We can't let that happen."
Nox slumps down the wall, the effort of standing becoming laborious at best. The friendly corgi laps at him in an attempt to spur him onward, but he seems to tired to even fend off the ravenous 'attack'.
Sylva jokes, “I’m afraid if Ravenna and I step in, we’ll both have each other’s best qualities: her height and my waistline. They don’t combine well.
“Seriously though, I can’t let curiosity be the reason to alter my body.”
She whips out her med kit, speaking of.
The Looksee Man shrugs. "It's your choice," he says, though he sounds a bit disappointed.
"You should know that Kaneepo the Slim awaits you in the final chamber. If you're here to stop him, then you'd better be ready for a fight!"
“Okay but… you said have a ‘look-see.’ Does that mean like we can find out first, without actually altering ourselves? Or would it be like a face tattoo? Y’know, like if it’s not a good look, you can’t really cover it up and it’s always there when you look in the mirror. People judge.” She touches her cheek momentarily, but gets back to treating Ravenna’s wound. “I like my cheek dots, but y’know… random permanent changes? A girl can only get lucky so many times. Hate to press it.”
"We will not know what results the machine will produce until we activate it!" the Looksee Man says.
His seriousness seen in his blue eyes that have not left the eyes of the Looksee man, Sir Batman rushes over to Nox.
Sir Batman smiles at Sylva's ministrations and misgivings.
Sylva jokes, “I’m afraid if Ravenna and I step in, we’ll both have each other’s best qualities: her height and my waistline. They don’t combine well.”
Ravenna lets out an amused snort, but keeps her focus on the Looksee Man. "Tell us about Kaneepo," she tells him.
"Kaneepo is quite the formidable foe. They can step through shadows, even to avoid attacks, and they feed on their victim's shadows through the flayed flesh of their body. They thrive on fear and cannot be frightened, but like many fey, Kaneepo is weak to cold iron," the Looksee Man says.
Sir Batman turns his newly googled-bronze bat head to peer at the Looksee man.
Why are you referring to the Real Slim Shady with theys?
The sprite seems to be fidgeting with his newly gifted googles.
"Kaneepo has no gender. They are neither male nor female," the Looksee Man says matter-of-factly.
Sylva adds a question of her own. “You mean genderless like, a self-identity thing? Or physical, like their body literally lacks the fun par… nope, nope! Sorry. TMI and it’s not like I’ve had any fun wi—
“TMI.”
Sylva regains her composure.
“Cold iron! That’s the topic I wanted to bring up, not that I want any of that accursed metal near my unfun body, but is there perchance a cold iron stash about somewhere? Because that would be convenient.”
"Aside from destroying the elves, Kaneepo most desires to create more of their kind and begin a dynasty." The Looksee Man looks to Sylva. "It is a physical lack of reproductive organs or any secondary sexual characteristics. That is why they commissioned me to build this wondrous machine! Kaneepo hopes to make others 'slim' like them, that they may rule the Thinlands together."
He shakes his head at the second question. [B)"No cold iron here! It is too hazardous to many of the First World's inhabitants, Kaneepo included!"[/b]
Sir Batman rolls his googly eyes.
Sylva looks at the machine. “So would this machine change the people who step inside, or… make two people parents without the need for them to be one male, one female, or of ancestries that can normally produce children together?”
Kaneepo’s massly-murderous intent is not lost on Sylva. But Look-See’s creation does intrigue her.
”It’s not specifically designed for that, but I think I can make the machine do something to that effect, with a few minor calibrations!”
Sylva keeps eyes and hands busy on Ravenna’s wound, but she says honestly, “That would be beautiful.”
Sir Batman just glares at the lab coat. The bronze-colored sprite seems in a foul mood for some reason.
I am ready to meet The Real Slim Shady!
Once you are ready, you proceed into the final room. A short flight of stairs leads up into this wide chamber. To the east, a raised dais holds an elaborate throne of living wood, leafless black branches twisting up out of its back. To the west is a four-poster bed of black silk. Next to the bed is a small birdcage, inside of which a hat-wearing hedgehog clutches at the iron bars. Huge tapestries hang down from the twenty-foot-high ceiling, showing a bright forest at the top slowly turning to spindly black branches at the bottom
Kaneepo the Slim is sitting on their throne, wearing the Shadewither Key around their neck and stroking a pet temagyr. The malevolent fey grins at you. ”There you are. I have been expecting you. You are very impressive, to have fought your way all the way to my side. That is why I know you will be worthy heirs. Join me! You will enjoy being slim. We will rule the Thinlands together! Or... you can die!”
Sir Batman saunters into the chamber like Lady Gaga disapprovingly dismissing the dirty decor.
Seems we meet at last! Finally! Will The Real Slim Shady, please stand up!
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Nox looks over to Sir Batman and then up to The Slim.
"We don't seek the destruction of elven kind. We actually want for you to stop, we also don't want to fight you or kill you Kaneepo, but if you don't give us another choice by seeing reason..."
He shakes his head rattling slightly in the beetle mask. "It was wrong of them to shun you all those years ago, to lock you away when all you wanted was compassion and companionship. But there is no changing the past and the elves that live today are a far cry from their ancient ancestors. in most regards. So please see reason Kaneepo!"
Ravenna pauses, just long enough to see how successful Nox's entreaty is (or isn't), then opens fire. "I must disrespectfully decline your offer," she says dryly.
"I will never forgive the elves for what they did to me!" Kaneepo cries. "When you are slim too, you will see things my way!"
Ravenna opens fire, just managing to hit the temagyr with a bullet. She is unable to recall anything about Kaneepo since they are a unique fey, but you've already learned much about them while making your way through their lair!
Kaneepo slips through the shadows, appearing several feet away from their throne. The flayed strips of flesh around their body suddenly stretch out in an impossibly long line, wrapping around your shadows as the fey tries to feed on them!
Meanwhile, the temagyr bends light and darkness to leap into Ravenna's shadow! It appears beside the gunslinger, snapping at her! She dodges away!
Success: The creature is unafected.
Failure: The creature takes 3d6 mental damage and is frightened 1.
Critical Failure: The creature takes 6d6 mental damage and is frightened 2.
Sylva is somehow still standing. She takes that knife and whips it…
…away.
She takes out another.
And seems to be aiming at the first knife she threw.
She takes cover.
Sir Batman blinks. His blue eyes watering and his bronze-colored skin fades just a bit!
But the bronze-colored bat-shaped sprite grins!
Hey! That was not nice!
The Champion of Mazludeh then places both hands on his shield, Raises it high and and....Strides 20' at The Real Slim Shady!
I need to have a word!
....actually notices the ugly shadow-eating puppy next to them, eating on the Gunslinger!
Bad puppy!
The Champion of Mazludeh Reacts quickly!
Liberating Step
The sprite then Strides into the puppy's square!
Down Fido!
"Spread out!" Ravenna yells, clutching at her forehead in pain. She staggers away from the temagyr before firing another shot at the monster.
Sylva's knives sail harmlessly across the room. As Batman moves to occupy the hound, Nox batters it with a chunk of bark and Ravenna shoots it again. The gorga is badly wounded but still standing.
With the temagyr still occupying your attention, Kaneepo reaches up to grasp the Shadewither Key around their neck. It glows briefly, then a shadowy duplicate of the Slim appears next to them, eyes gleaming with red malevolence. It moves to intercept any attacks aimed at Kaneepo.
The temagyr snaps at Ravenna again, but fails to hit her. It then tries to rip at her shadow.
Failure: The target takes 1d4+4 piercing damage and the temagyr gains 2 temporary Hit Points for 1 minute.
Critical Failure: The target takes 2d4+8 piercing damage and the temagyr gains 4 temporary Hit Points for 1 minute.