Pipp joins the fracas with a well aimed shot and some well delivered words. Unfortunately he's a bit TOO good as he kills the very mite he inspired everybody to shoot.
ROUND 1:
Jewel: Go
Rolo: Miss
Helianthoides: Kill + Hit
Pipp: Kill
Nature to ID: TBD
Pipsqueak: TBD
Occultism to ID: TBD
Kazi: TBD
**************
TACTICAL MAP
Handler:
Jewel scores a solid hit on the freakish thing. the follow up misses, but it's helpful knowing this thing can bleed.
ROUND 1:
Jewel: Hit
Rolo: Miss
Helianthoides: Kill + Hit
Pipp: Kill
Pipsqueak: Go
Occultism to ID: TBD
Kazi: TBD
**************
TACTICAL MAP
Handler: 5
Pipsqueak wonders aloud, but doesn't let not knowing slow her down.
The first bullet rips through the thing's side, spraying ichor and blood.
It skitters back a bit, letting the equipment provide some cover. It vomits a strange viscous fluid at Helianthodes and then Pipsqueak:
Miss
for
It sneers a single word in Aklo that doesn't translate elegantly. It's essentially "turn about is fair play."
ROUND 1:
Jewel: Hit
Rolo: Miss
Helianthoides: Kill + Hit
Pipp: Kill
Pipsqueak (9/19): CRIT FORT
Occultism to ID: ATK
Kazi: Go
ROUND 2:
Jewel: Go
Rolo: Go
Helianthoides: Go
Pipp: Go
Pipsqueak (9/19): Go
Occultism to ID: TBD
Kazi: TBD
**************
TACTICAL MAP
Handler: 17
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Helianthiodes lumbers over the containment unit to place the extremely rude alien within reach of their tentacles. One of their tentacles fires a ray of bright heat. Then the tentacles shift to black null-light, and Helianthiodes whips the one in his hand toward the alien.
+ Creature’s space and all adjacent squares are Difficult Terrain for that creature
Pipsqueak keeps it together and fires back, but misses on the aim, then sprays and even that misses!
Helianthoides, delivers a death blow however! The creature gives an unintelligible gasp as it dies on the floor.
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With the sound of bubblewrap being rapidly popped, Helianthiodes' wings, tail, and general bulk folds in on itself and they, rather gruesomely, take the form of a human woman once more. "Ah," they sigh with one last loud pop and a roll of their shoulders. "Apologies. We try to wear our helmet when we change perspectives."
They clamber over the tanks and cages to examine the alien. "We didn't mean to kill it, necessarily."
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Kazi rushes into the room, a fleeting look of forced calm crossing his face as readies to cast a spell. Seeing the final creature fallen, his shoulders relax, though he looks a little frustrated. "Sorry I'm late, I think this place is getting to me a little bit."
Exhaling one long breath, he walks over to the fallen creature and considers it carefully.
While the newly shaped Helianthoides doesn't know what those mites are, Kazi knows an orocoran when he sees one. Native to Aucturn, orocorans maybe even predate the coming of the cults of the Elder Mythos and the Dominion of the Black, and they remain one of their world’s most populous intelligent races. Orocorans are parasites that prey on the living planet, seeking out the pulsing veins of black ichor that run beneath parts of Aucturn’s surface, drawing the liquid out with their mosquito-like proboscises.
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First, Rolo crosses his eyes in concentration as he taps into his vitality pool and transfers 10 hit points over to pipsqueak!
Rolo casts another eldritch lance on the deadly bug!
◆ Transfer Vitality
◆◆ Eldritch Lance
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"We could almost pity the orocoran," Helianthoides says after Kazi explains. "Their food source blasted across the void when the godling hatched. That gives us an idea as to what was in those food pouches."
Once the searching of the room is finished, with a great deal of popping and snapping, they expand back into the form of a yellow-scaled dragonkin. "Shall we try this door in the corner here?" they ask in the deeper, masculine voice that accompanies this form.
Rolo and Jewel give it a quick once over. The destruction in here is pretty extensive, but they both uncover some tidbits: two sacks filled
with aucturnite and other asundrystolen goods, and two vials of a strange serum... it's a glossy purple syrup swirled with streaks of black and green.
The intrepid Helianthoides inches towards the door. Hearing nothing, opens it as the others wrap up. Eight workspaces, each equipped with a computer, take up most of the space in this room. The desks hold items including family photos, sealed beakers with neon liquids, and a tardigrade plushie.
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Helianthoides grunts as they notice the train of blood continues through the terminal room. They rapidly shrink and change back into a human woman so that they can fit through the door and crowded workroom without squeezing.
"Come on," they encourage the others to follow. "The blood trail picks back up here. And there might be something on one of these computers."
Helianthoides pushes the party forward into the room.
You learn that this lab was dedicated to studying the psychic properties of Aucturn’s remnants via hands-on experiments. One researcher detailed a vision in which one of the midwives urged him to seek out the Azlanti Star Empire. Another describes a hallucination where she was stranded on a floating platform atop a purple cloud. She was with someone she didn’t know—and the description of the individual is an exact match for ...Jewel?
A researcher describes a hallucination where she was stranded on a floating platform atop a purple cloud. She was with someone she didn’t know—and the description of the individual is an exact match for ...Jewel?
A perfect cube of aucturnite.
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"You're right. Let me see what those computers have to say."
Jewel moves to one of the workstations and begins tapping away. She stares for several seconds, reading over what she learns. "Huh. This lab was studying the psychic properties of Aucturn's remnants. And they had a pretty hands on approach. One of the researchers writes about a vision where one of... midwives urged him to seek the Azlanti Star Emoire. Another hallucinated being stranded on floating platform above a purple cloud, and they were with someone they didn't recognize. But... Wait a sec. Are they describing me??"
Jewel is visibly unnerved by this revelation.
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"That's what we came to fetch, we think," Helianthiodes says to Pipsqueak. "We fear the worst as far as making a good--or any--impression on the researchers here. The blood trail continues this way."
They wait for the others to gather and then continue to follow the blood. As they open the door, their four suckered tentacles of solar light manifest from their back. "Ah!"