Alpha-47 continues channeling energy into his bless, widening its effect to envelop almost the entire room.
He then hurtles a large piece of debris at it before thinking really hard on if there is any way to destroy this zombie permanently or a way to end its curse.
Aliens - Round 3 - concluded
Bless, +1 to attacks. Active if within range of Alpha. Victor's Wreath adds +1 to attacks/dmg if within 15' of Bahir. Note: they do not stack.
21 Raika
19 Alpha-47
15 Hetuath (30hp dmg)
11 Efni
9 Seoli
9 Karina
6 Bahir
Flinging a divinely crafted stone at the many-limbed bad guy, Alpha is gratified when the stone cracks on the head of the creature, and while the damage is very light, its just enough to topple him. With a crash, the lone foe falls but you do see the light that has been behind its green eyes go out as it dies on the floor.
End of Combat
Standing over the remains of the creature, "I've gained new information, I think this creature is clearly not at peace, which explains why it continues to return, it is some variant of a Juju Zombie, I posit if we move the remains to be exposed to its home environment, that should put the spirit to peace,"
Alpha-47 will use his cloak to gather up the remains of the Zombie, looking to the others to follow him back outside.
"This is all so weird. Imagine having four arms. I could wield another maul with it." Efni began to gossip.
"There's no home environment here," Karina says with a grimace. "Clearly. You'd know if these things were supposed to be here. But, now that the druid is gone, mind if I try f@%$ing with the temperature and wind? Maybe we can come close enough to trick the spirits."
Raika doesn't have an opinion on the zombie, so she will simply follow Alpha outside and help with his attempt to put it to rest in any way that she can.
Bahir stays busy testing and investigating the various metals they encounter as the others deal with the zombie. He looks around for someone to share his excitement with... but it seems to be more of a personal thing.
"Well, if you think it's worth a try..." Seoli tilts her head curiously as she follows Alpha back into the desert habitat, "If nothin' else, we could probably bury it. Then it'd at least have to spend some time diggin' itself out if it comes back again."
When the deceased zombie is taken back into the desert environment, with the heat, the wind, and the red sun, Alpha is not terribly surprised when the corpse slowly starts dissolving and blowing apart like the grains of sand upon the wind, and soon he is left holding a strange garment and some shortswords and that is all.
Upon investigation, its clear the same thing happened to the skeletons when they were put down. The home-like environment allowed them to finally be free, and they melted away leaving barely a trace.
Karina's luther plucks a few notes on its own, and the chords and intervals make it sound rather displeased. "I believe we should continue onto where we were last, yes.... I should also tell you, before it comes back to bite us in case we ever run into the superstitious sort while working together, that I'm not a bard -- at least by the source of my magic -- I'm a witch. A witch working for the Queen of Witches herself, so uh... I might land you in hot water at times," Karina says with a sly grin. "Anyways, we should get moving." Karina says as she starts walking towards the middle of the pack.
With this spaced cleared the party moves back to the Science Deck through the door that Raika jammed open earlier. In the first room you come to, which has walls, floors, and ceilings made of the same smooth metal, there is a large metal desk with blinking lights and strange glowing panels that sits atop a raised area on the east side of this room near a circular table. Two couches covered with black material sit to the south of a pair of black metal pillars. Splatters of dried blood stain the floor and walls near a pair of doors to the north, while here and there patch of rust-red mold and fungus cling to the southern wall. The room is brightly lit by glowing panels in the ceiling.
You have looked in this room before, Bahir studying the mold inconsequentially then. There are double doors directly across from where you entered, and single door behind the metal desk.
Raika moves over to the couches and checks under the cushions, as well as under the couches themselves, to see if any of the keycards (or anything else interesting) can be found. After all, people lose things in couches all the time.
"Alright, now that we know nothin's gonna jump out at us from behind..."
Seoli's attention is immediately piqued by the blinking lights and glowing panels at the desk at the far end of the room. Without a moment's hesitation she rushes up the stairs and vaults the desk to get a better look.
Raika searches the couches well but does not come up with any loose change or anything at all of interest.
Seoli looks at the desk and see a glass screen that flashes and blips. Sometimes the screen is filled with nothing but black and white static, sometimes it is completely dark, but for a second or two, occasional glimpse of lines of strange characters, like language appear. And surprisingly, one in a great while, images of creatures appear. The four-armed kasathas appear as Seoli watches along with some vaguely dog-like quadruped that is blue in color with a wavy mane. Also, images of a plant with a yellow bloom atop a strange green-blue stalk. Nothing says what these images are or where they are from. They only last a heartbeat or two before the static comes back. None of the flashing dials or buttons seem to affect the monitors stability.
Alpha-47 would step closer with deliberate, mechanical precision, golden eyes reflecting the flickering screen. He would tilt his head just slightly, observing the intermittent static and strange symbols with a studied calm.
"The machine still dreams. Its memory is fractured, but it remembers. . . fragments. Species. Places. Perhaps instructions. We should not ignore it."
Alpha recognizes the spiky text that flips on and off the screen as Androffan, but its also fractured and broken. The symbols form fragments, but not coherent thoughts, and the pattern seems to be unrecognizable and likely just randomized nonsense.
"Oh good, it's just broken," Seoli comments with a slight hint of relief, "I was thinkin' whoever made this place just had superfast reading skills."
"D'you think there's a way to fix it? If you think there might be somethin' important in it, that is."
Raika will walk to all three visible doors and see what color card readers they have, if they have them, so that the group has an idea of which doors they can easily move through.
"Careful Sister. This is a strange place. You pick a door, and I'll open it".
The two sets of double doors, one on the north and one on the east, both seem to have brown chips on the locking mechanism. The smaller door behind the desk is chipped with black.
"I'm not opening, I'm examining. We have two brown and one black. Do we have keys of those colors?" Her question is directed at Karina and Alpha.
Looking at the doors, "We have brown, but Raika weren't you previously able to get one of these doors open, though we may need to be searching around better for a black keycard,"
"With what little scraps of Androffan I know... I can semi-confidently say this is just a garbled mess. Like someone erased chunks of a text down the middle of the characters, and then rearranged the order."
"I was, with Karina and my brothers' help. But since we have the brown keys, it might be better to take one of those doors and look for a black key. It also might be wise to find whatever left the blood stains before it has a chance to find us. Especially since we can open that door." She points to the stains near the north door.
"My vote's for the door with the blood around it," Seoli raises a finger as she walks back from around the desk, sitting at the top of the stairs leading to it, "Doesn't look like whatever was bleedin' came any further into this room. And if it's Val's dad, we're prob'ly gonna need to patch 'im up."
"My wounds are in an inconvenient location. Perhaps someone could look at them and patch me up a bit".
Perception.
"Let me know when you're ready and we'll go in".
Nothing on the doors, other than the previously described blood stains, looks out of place or unusual. The brown key card does open the north doors, revealing a long curving hallway that is brightly lit. Bloodstains mar the floor and walls of this hallway, while scorch marks and smears of ash on the walls evidence some sort of altercation having taken place in this area relatively recently. Four mangled mounds of metal and other materials lie further up the hall, surrounded by strangely colored stains.
The blood trail follows the entire length of the hall, ending at a set of doors with blood stains on them to the east, and another set of double doors to the south, which look less likely to have been the path of whatever left the trail down the hallway.
Both sets of doors at the hallway' end have brown chips on them.
Raika will examine the blood trail to see if she can tell how old the blood is.
Seoli's nose wrinkles as scent of iron washes into the room, reflexively covering her nose and mouth with a hand, "That's... A lot more blood than I was expectin'."
"Did Baine come down here with a group? 'Cause if not, looks like he has a ton of blood," she comments with a bit of defensive levity, "Or, had a ton of blood, anyway."
Moving into the hall, Seoli crouches down next to one of the mangled heaps of metal, prodding it with a finger as she gives it a look over.
Efni also covers her nose. She is not used to this sight and smell. "I don't want to be on the recieving end of whatever did this. I tell you that."
Looking around at the bloody hallway, "Perhaps there was a particularly wet fight that took place here. May be multiple creatures lost blood in this hallway, still with no sign of Khonnir we should proceed further in and onto the next set of doors,"
The tangled heaps of metal (four in total) appear to the ruins of some form of automaton similar but not the same as the ones you fought upon your reentry into the caverns. They are in various states of disrepair now, including bludgeoning, fire, and other means of destruction.
The blood is not exactly fresh. It's no longer wet to the touch, but it doesn't appear to very oxidized either. Raika would guess is a week or two old. Similar to the time, as she understands it, that Khonnir Baine's expedition went missing.
"Whoever left this either healed themselves or bled out. It's at least a week old. Raika tells the group.
At the end of the hall, where there are two brown doors, she's not sure which way to go. "On the one hand, the blood leads ahead. On the other hand, we might want to check the side door and make sure nothing can cut us off."
"I vote for directly through the door... either that or trying to open both at once."
"If whoever is bleeding still lives, we might be able to defeat them more easily if a foe. If a friend perhaps we can save them. It's a tough choice because I don't wish to turn my back on the unknown. Perhaps we could quickly construct a barrier or alarm on the other door and check out what's behind the bloody barrier. If not perhaps one of us can stay behind to guard the other door. Time may be of the essence".
Shaking his head, "Opening both would be the worst choice, let us open them one at a time so as to best tackle whatever challenges lie beyond," Pointing to the inner door, "I cast my vote for this door,"
As the party moves further into the hall, Seoli stands from her crouching position and dusts her hands off on her skirt.
"Well, the blood doesn't trail into that door on the right, so maybe they didn't go in there? Could be some really neat stuff in there that they passed up."
Listening to Alpha and Seoli, the group opens the door without a blood trail leading to it, using the brown key card. It leads to a long, well-lit metal hallway about 30' long. The hallway ends in another set of doors at the south end, while more double doors are on the west wall. A single door is opposite those on the east side of the hall. All the doors are marked with a brown chip.
"I think that the hall can wait. Let's check the blood trail. Raika suggests.
Looking down the hallway at the 3 different sets of doors inside, "You may be right, we will eventually have to explore this whole place, but let us first follow the blood trail,"
"Thaaaat's disappointin'..." Seoli pouts as the door opens to reveal another hall, "Follow the blood trail it is, then."
The brown key card opens the doors that are smeared with blood. The room inside is well lit with the now familiar metal floors, walls, and ceilings. Another set of double doors is on the opposite side of the room, set in the south wall.
A long table with various unusual stones and dirt samples heaped on it sits along the south wall of this room, while to the north a line of metal desks with glowing panels and buttons are placed next to a large humming device. The heart of this device seems to be some sort of flickering sphere of reddish brown mud or dirt. Dust covers much of this room, save for a strangely clean swath between the doors, which leads straight to the strange humming device.
As you enter, those inside the room hear a voice inside their heads that sends thoughts, not exactly language, but still understandable -- to you. "Where am I?" the internal voices queries, it "voice" edged with a hint of fear.
"Has anyone else wondered, where one would get so much metal?"
Efni keeps wondering with amazement. "And who's talking in my head? Show yourself!" she commands into the room.
"What happened to the blood trail?" Raika asks, though her question is more rhetorical. Then there is the voice in their heads, and Raika smiles. That's something novel.
"I don't think that it can. I'm guessing that device is 'talking' to us." She points to the humming device and walks over to it. Then Raika tries something - she tries to think at the device.
"You are in some sort of rock sample room in a strange metal building deep underground.". She tries to project reassurance, but has no idea, yet, if her thinking is even being heard by the device, and she does not speak her answer to it out loud.
Bahir nods as the others address the voice that is also in his head... but his attention is distracted by the rock and ore samples, and he heads that way to look at them.
LORE: Plane of metal. (To see if any of these contain metallic material).
"You guys hear that too, right?" Seoli looks around the room frantically as the 'voice' enters her mind, "Uh, well not 'hear', but... Y'know what I mean."
She tilts her head in confusion as Raika gives her explanation, "The machine's talkin' to us?" Looking over the device, she asks, "So what would its... Face be? The glowy bits, or the big ball of dirt?"
Seoli waves to the device, "Uh... Hello?"
Alpha-47 stepped forward, seemingly oblivious to the smeared blood and dust-choked consoles around him. The others might have felt unease at the disembodied voice, but to the android cleric, it was not fear he heard—it was a call. His golden eyes fixed on the humming device and the flickering sphere of living mud suspended within.
“Brigh guide me,” he murmured, more prayer than words, touching two fingers reverently to the bronze gear holy symbol at his chest. He approached the machine with cautious wonder, reaching out as though greeting a frightened animal.
“Machine, do you have a name?” he asked aloud, voice steady but gentle. “Do you remember your purpose? We mean you no harm, as Brigh is my witness.”
As Efni commands the voice to show itself, it answers "I am right before you, where do you come from?".
Thinking back at the voice rather than speaking aloud does not seem to work the same as speaking, though the responses are not audible per se as much as telepathic.
The blood trail from the outer doors ends as soon as it enters this chamber and the dust and debris that litter the area are not present for a long clean stripe that leads from the door to this humming box. Like it has been wiped clean with a mop, just in that narrow band.
"Hello," it replies to Seoli. And to Alpha-47 it replies, though it is "heard" by all. "I don't know my name. What is Machine? Is that my name? What is your name? I don't know my purpose. What is your purpose?"
As Bahir looks at the rock samples on the southern table, he can see some of them have ore deposits or other signs of metal, but he cannot determine what those tings are. They do not look like things he has seen or studied before.