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Zynn takes on the remaining one alone while the others handle the aftermath. He strikes hard, nearly dropping it. Suddenly there's a shot from over his shoulder as Twilia-5 finishes it off. So too does this one balloon before exploding! ROUND 2:
Ysh' takes the explosion in the face, but the fire isn't so bad. She makes good on the charge, seriously wounding the remaining bug. ROUND 2:
DM: Green: 15
"Hold up. Hold Up." His voice drops, "I'm a realist, and in a situation this dire, I don’t expect anyone to do anything for free. I promise that the resistance can pay, but it’s only half as much as the Authority is paying for the cargo. We’re just working people not a star-spanning corporation or conquering empire. You're just going to take your truck for a little detour. What do you say?”
K.I.N.A.A. strikes the insect! It immediately starts twitching. Suddenly it expands a bit and then EXPLODES! When it's gone only chunks and the smell of gunpowder remain! ROUND 2:
DM: Green: 2
Aldo:
You can tell that there's some tech altering this hobgoblin's appearance, but you're not sure what his true form looks like. It's obvious to enough of you that this isn't a guard, it's a resistance fighter.... He can tell that you can tell, and he switches to Common. “You can see what’s going on here. Vohxa is a peaceful world of miners and their families. The Authority’s come on some trumped up excuse, and they’re not going to stop until we’re all enslaved or dead. We want to fight back, but hunting rifles are no match for hovertrucks. But if one of these trucks ends up going to a resistance hideout instead of an Authority armory, we might have a chance. Now, we could make that happen. What do you say?”
Burnham misses, but also plays interference as he lines things up for the others. K.I.N.A.A. strikes with a magically hurled stone, and the insect waivers, but stays aloft. Zynn faces one alone, and it tries to chomp down on him again:
The severely wounded one turns on Burnham:
ROUND 2:
DM: Green: 2 Black: 24
Zoey's attack is a bit wild, but Ysh' connects with the junksword! The insect is clearly wounded, but in protecting it's eggs, there's no hint of backing down. ROUND 1:
DM: Green: 2 Black: 19
Zynn and Twila-5 both react quickly and efficiently, though Twila-5's tumbling doesn't help her shot. ROUND 1:
DM: Green: 2 Black: 5
The party puts their heads down as the authorities rough up the shirren a bit before hauling him in. Just as you grab the first boxes of the last palette, a hobgoblin guard approaches you, “Word is you all are transporting guns and grenades,” he says in a casual tone. “It sure would be a shame if they ended up in the hands of the resistance.”
Chip's effort drop the second hound! Gideron Authority troopers stroll onto the scene; they’re in no hurry to help, but they first move to take the shirren into custody and punish them for their failure....
Expecting trouble, the party is ready when trouble arrives! Two multi-winged insects the size of dogs with a strange gunmetal color take flight from the top of the shelves! DM:
One closes on Zynn: for And the other on Burnham: MISS ROUND 1:
Gig and Janzi... the black whole begins to suck you in! The plasma of the event horizon strikes you both! ! for
The whole then vanishes... Booker, Dunk, and Hack-it:
It was an illusion, an assault on the mind, but real enough to harm your comrades. Gig: (SP: 42/198)
Alf hits again, this time he tricks the hound! Aldo boosts Kaz, though he can't follow up with a hit. Aldo incinerates the first hound with a well placed shot!
Kaz then slashes the hound, leaving it quite wounded. The hound fights back!
ROUND 3:
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GM: Black: 22
Aldo boosts Kaz, though he can't follow up with a hit. ROUND 3:
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GM: Black: 18
Aldo incinerates the first hound with a well placed shot!
Kaz then slashes the hound, leaving it quite wounded. The hound fights back!
ROUND 3:
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GM: Black: 18
Twila-5 gives the all clear, and then the party moves forward and left. The door seems safe, so with a click it opens. This large room is piled high with metal crates, many of which are upended, their lids nowhere to be seen. A few of these boxes contain masses of stringy, organic filaments and pulsating egg sacs, each the size of a fist.
Feeling confident that the computers have given up the entirety of their story, the party turns to the door. It's easy enough to open despite the groan of disuse, and it provides choices. It's a hallway the splits and ends in two unmarked doors.
Angel scores a light hit, but the mad hounds keep coming. They come charging in. ROUND 2:
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GM: Red: 17 Black: 5
Alf and Aldo's aim are WAY off. Chip and his drone score a couple of hits, but here comes Kaz! The vesk shoots the hobbe hound in the rump! The beast is slowed and wounded, but not out! ROUND 1:
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GM: Red: 17 Black:
Ysh' finds the computers easy and primitive. There seems to be only a bunch of spreadsheets, and poorly kept ones at that. There's one file that catches the technomancer's eye though. It's a personal log entry by the same colonel. It has been done. A few of my soldiers balked when I gave the order to launch the missiles, but they have been incarcerated until we can have a proper court martial. We must continue to have the rule of law down here while the world above burns. Otherwise, we are no better than the nighthoppers in the fields. I was sure those cowardly Omathu would have surrendered right away, but perhaps they thought we were so addled by their perfidy that we would forget our treaties and that Bhyrri would fall alone. Their retributive strikes came swiftly. The foul Kolleo followed suit against us. Our allies then fired their own strikes… and it escalated from there. If only Omathu had acquiesced, this destruction could have been avoided
The party has little difficulty with the door. Twila-5 notes that this room has no wildlife in it for whatever reason. Once the door is open, access to the screens is easy. The computers have only their desktop open.
Chip sends the drone forth, but it's almost too late! A pair of hobbes brake free before the drone can lock the cage. You're the closest meals, so they head your way! ROUND 1:
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GM: INITIATIVE: Black: Red:
Janzi recognizes absolutely nothing in this room. Unfortunately, stealth isn't enough to prevent what comes next. At the midpoint of the room, a brilliant flash of red streaks across the room’s center and splits to reveal a horizontal vortex of light that swirls like a yawning black hole! It's beginning to suck you in!
Alf thinks they're "hobbe hounds." Genetically and alchemically modified animals. Generations of experimentation has led to this strange species that is strong, hard to grab, and known for their vicious bite. Aldo confirms that there's no landing pad. Everyone feels uncomfortable, and it's made worse when the shirren loses his nerve and flees the cage. Time to start.... ....the cage from which he fled remains unlocked!
Despite the bad feeling, neither Booker nor Gig see anything that is genuinely dangerous.
Cautious after the last trap, the party slowly advances. Nothing of note (good or bad) stands out here. The door to the business side of the room is locked The window to the other side of the room shows the soft glow of working computers!
"Trouble? I'm not your therapist. Just go!" She storms off without another word. Looking around, the camp seems like bad news. Dwarf, human, and shirren prisoners are being slowly starved and worked to death. Hobgoblin guards routinely abuse the adult prisoners, sometimes whipping them with taclashes; these whippings have shredded the shirts of many of the prisoners. You see a shirren fearfully enter a cage with viciously looking quadrapeds that look like jacked dog-rats. This place is bad news...
This broad, rectangular room is awash in mangled debris. Chunks of plastic and metal that may have once been furniture lie in piles throughout the room, entangled with an occasional remnant of foam or fabric. Sections of the walls are dented, as if from mighty impacts. Undamaged sections of the wall present holographic murals of swamps filled with dense trees, thick vines, and towering ferns. All this fauna is red as a result of the deeply indigo lighting from intermittent wall sconces, shaped like torches. A roughly textured floor, also red, is visible beneath the debris.
"Name is Siib. Look you can’t unload 50 tons of personal armaments here,” the officer insists, gesturing around the camp. “Look around you! This is a prison labor camp! Do you think it’s a wise idea to put laser rifles and frag grenades a few yards away from this desperate swarm of vermin?” She gestures toward the dwarven, human, and shirren prisoners in threadbare and sometimes tattered clothing, hiding inside cheap plastic shelters or shambling in and out of the mine entrance under the close eye of Gideron guards. Some eye the starship curiously while also trying to avoid the attention of the soldiers. “We don’t even have a place to store them!” She shakes her head. “I’m not signing off on this,” she insists. “Not unless you take all this someplace safe. We have an armory just up the mountain, and a couple of trucks. I can spare some soldiers to drive one of them, but if you want your credits, you’ll have to take the other.”
It's velvet rope for forming a queue. This looks like a customer service area. Twila-5 doesn't see anything she thinks might be trapped.
Whatever it is, it's likely just pure acid now. Hack-it catches one place where he thinks he could scrape together 5 doses of haeshi-shaa serum
Janzi finds nothing other than the party thinking... Booker isn't sure what it used to be, but there's enough to scrape together about a half dozen doses of... whatever it does
As BD514 descends through the clouds toward its destination, signs of war and conflict quickly become apparent. Blast craters and wrecked vehicles pockmark fractured highways, shattered stumps of smokestacks rise from shut-down factories, and the tracks of hobgoblin war machines crisscross the countryside. Labor Camp 1120 comes into sight: a large rectangular compound nestled against the foot of a mountain, surrounded by high walls and spiral wire, accessed by a single enormous gate and protected by multiple guard towers with gun emplacements. A flat landing area with several parked vehicles has room for BD514. A cavernous mine entrance leads into the mountain. The camp has several rugged, prefabricated buildings, but also sports a large collection of plastic shelters that look like they provide little protection from the cold mountain air. Hobgoblin soldiers patrol or guard locations throughout the camp. Moments after you land a female hobgoblin officer strides forward waving a datapad, a squad of troopers at her back. “What are you doing here? This camp is not cleared for civilian access!”
There is a very pregnant pause before the reply comes. "Acknowledged. You have permission to land at Labor Camp 1120. Any deviation from this flight plan will be met with sustained anti-aircraft fire."
This door looks safe, so the party opens it. This simple area is divided in half by a wall featuring a window of mesh wire and a solid door. In the eastern half of the room are several desks with a computer consoles and three accompanying chairs.
Ready to go, the team takes off. The BD514 isn't a very powerful ship, and it's going to be a haul. Once clear, you hit Driftspace. The computer comes back with an ETA: days! The journey to Vohxa is uneventful, and you arrive at a small world awash in snow and rock, its jutting mountain peaks competing with the lofty factory towers that clutter the planet’s surface. As soon as BD514 emerges from the Drift, the ship is detected by a fleet of Gideron Authority vessels patrolling the system. A Sword-class attack vessel approximately twice the size of BD514 peels away from the hobgoblin fleet and pulls alongside the your vessel, targeting it with weapons and broadcasting a warning in Common: “This is the Gideron Authority attack vessel Falchion. Identify yourselves and your mission.”
There is another door 40 feet down the walkway from the previous level. It is marked “Armory” in Ghibran...
No one knows the names, not Twila-5, not Klarima. Zoey is well aware that there's some HEAVY stuff here. The party opts to mark this cache, but there's a lot more to explore...
Confident that there would certainly not be a second trap here, Zynn presses play: The researchers say they can’t prove it, but I know what happened: the devious villains of Omathu erased our memories somehow!
AHHH not eaten. Misplaced!
The party works together to get the door open. A large vault behind the door contains a stockpile of weapons that can be mounted on vehicles and starships. This is clearly a cache of weapons that would be usable by the Exo-Guardians. There's also a weakly powered tablet. There's an audio file loaded and a blinking play button.
After gesturing at the corpses, but before Hack-it actually stands up, Booker checks the door. Other than an awful smell, there's nothing untoward about it, so he presses the button. An acrid, sulfurous stench seeps from this vaulted rectangular room. Eons of exposure to caustic chemicals have worn the walls to a smooth glossy shine. Six massive, dingy white vats of various shapes and sizes occupy most of the floor space, their wide walls rising about four feet high. The phosphorescent, nauseatingly bright-green liquid in the vats is the source of the stench.
will post in the morning
It.... doesn't affect resale. Also, K.I.N.A.A. is right about Solarian weapons
Twila-5 is pretty certain that the trap won't reset, so it's just about opening the door now.
The orcs are genuinely surprised to be tipped. It's clear they are typically ignored on a job like this. One of the orcs speaks up. His accent is strange, like Common is his third language, "Hey you looking to equip before you leave? Around the corner is my brother's shop. If you tell him Fracter sent you, he'll give you a small discount. It ain't going to be much, but creds are creds man."
The giants’ belongings include nine large moonstones carved with celestial symbols worth 11,000 credits each. There is nothing else of note.
The party watches and tracks while the orcs kvetch and moan about the pay compared to the labor...
As the party discusses various things, they also set about to unlocking the door. Unfortunately as soon as the first agent touches it, a hybrid of magical and technological energy discharges from the door. Sadly, the door is still locked.
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