The group starts to spread around.
Oderon fumbles with the computers, his huge fingers pressing several keys at a time.
Navasi jumps over the torniquets blocking access to the inner building and starts searching the corridors
Search Posts
Navasi, I've told you the layout. Where will you look? Oderon, you don't see anything like that. There are are a few computers in the reception counter, maybe?
The group continues its frantic pace and head towards one of the tallest building around, a grey glass and steel behemoth with a large "Flexy Communications" flashing sign. As they approach, the buzzing gets louder and louder and the group blasts through the building doors at full sprint. They hurrely close the doors behind them and see the bugs coming fast already on the beginning of the street.
The group continues to run at a quick pace. Looking for the tallest buildings, they move north to the city center.
They reach a more urban area with taller buildings and all kind of services and stores. There's a small garden to the left with a statue on it. Near it there's an electronic sign with turist information. Usually you can connect to it and find more details about the area. Up ahead there's what appears to be a shopping center with neon lights and advertising averywhere. To the right it appears to be an office area with grey buildings all alike rolls:
The group moves along the street, trusting its alsphalt floor to protect them from the diggers.
Looking around, they see they're traveling along a street in a small village with buildings on each side. They're small with 3 to 5 floors. To the north, they notice an area nearby with taller buildings, presumably the village center. To the west, a few blocks away, there's a big church looming over a large square. South from the church there's a open area, with some kind of plantation and further away they notice a few storage silos.
The group moves forward but the flying bugs, drawn by the explosion approach rapidly.
dice:
Navasi: The drones are still far away but approaching fast
On the roof of the building, an explosion is heard, smoke and debris fly everywhere
Quig:
Checking your rig, you see that the creature is no longer on top of Scout. It looks hurt and it's hissing aggressively Navasi:
The drones see the explosion and start to move towards you On another block nearby, you see a familiar face getting up and moving away. He's the prisoner you had on your ship, he has a grenade launcher on his hand. He sees you looking at him, smiles, shrugs and dissapears from sight secret:
Quig joins the group approaching the door, fight noises are heard inside Navasi:
As the group approaches the house, you begin to see the first drone scouts appearing in the sky, its buzzing approaching fight!:
The group closest to the door hears what appear to be a crash inside the house Quig:
Scout advances a bit and pushes one of the doors, it looks like another bedroom. Suddenly the camera jerks and Scout falls to the ground, red lights flaring in its displays. As you watch in your rig, a claw passes in your field of view, cracking the camera and apparently pinning the drone to the ground
rolls:
Navasi:
rolls:
Odo and Kesh slowly approach the building
Quig focuses on his rig, controling the drone from the street Quig:
Scout hovers slowly around the room, its cameras focusing on possible hiding spots but he doesn't see anything. Carefully, he moves outside the room to a narrow corridor with a fallen furniture. The corridor has two more open doors and at the end of it you see some stairs going down. Navasi gains some distance from the building, choosing a better viewing spot Navasi:
The rumble of the bugs never left your ears, you didn't manage to gain that much distance from the swarm. Concentrating on it, you clearly notice the sound growing lowder... or is it just your own fears confusing your senses?
rolls:
Scout enters the building through the window. The lights are off but thre's some light entering from outside
It's clearly a girls room, with lots of pink and stuffed dolls. A chair is knocked in the ground and a door is wide open
The group fires many shots at the creature, but misses it.
The creature growls, its tail lashing wildly about and then, suddenly, it springs at Odo.
rolls:
Kesk boldly attacks the creature but misses Odo readies an attack and waits for the creature's move
life science DC 13: This is a Brush Stalker, an animal native to this region. It survives on the local wildlife but it looks starving. It's an accomplished hunter relying on stealth attacks to catch its prey
The group slowly approaches the body, checking around for dangers As they come near, they see fresh blood around the body, the death was recent.
Out of the corner of his eye, Kesk sees a creature hiding behind a brush !
Before he has a chance to warn anybody, it jumps and attacks him! Luckily, it misses its mark!
dice:
[/ooc]The highways are packed with abandoned vehicles, even if you could find a vehicle, you wouldn't be able to use it[/ooc] Quig fumbles around one of the cars anyway but to no avail
Quig:
The group struggles on for a few more hours, trying to ignore the exaustion as the snow starts to fall, more and more.
As everything the group sees starts to become white, they spot a acorpse of a human man on the ground, the red from the blood clashing against the white of the landscape
You hear the clicking noises far away but approaching fast and feel the rumble under you feet anytime you slow down so you try to keep a fast pace. Your comm units crackle to life with a recorded message every few hours.
The group has been moving and fighting for hours now and fatigue starts to bear on them
Godammit men, leave now, this is an order! The vesk tries futilely to stop you from helping him but he's too weak to do it.
Stubborn lot aren't you? - he manages a blood soacked grin. He looks around as a strong draft clears the dust for a few seconds. Approaching fast, you all see a wave of creatures, covering the ground like an ant army and his grin dissapears - No point in fighting here. - he holsters his pistol and turns to you
After an hour of picking your way through the dust, you stumble across a field of dozens of Swarm corpses. Near the center stands Major Jaldamarrak, pulling his doshko from the wriggling carapace of a recently killed dredger.
With a grimace, Jaldamarrak straps the doshko to his back and says, You all fall back. I’ll provide covering fire. He draws his pistol and checks the clip.
Quig:
You could try to rig a vehicle to explode maybe, but it might take a while, depending on how you roll. I would say engineering DC 20 with a -5 if you want to hurry The dust continues to cloud your vision and you don't see much ahead. You do know the general direction to move and going that way you begin to see abandoned cars pilled up, and signs of fleeing civillians.
Even with the interference, you manage to access a map and identify the places the message talked about. There's a Fort Gallant about 20 miles from you, crossing Dethomar River Far away you hear the rumble of a thousand clicking feet approaching fast
Both Quig and Scout hit the remaining bug killing it! As the group takes a breather, the comms continue to show much interference. ..coming from the ground!.... broke our lines, they're behind...
Odo attacks and finally kills Kesk's bug while Navasi heals him soothing his wounds
Kesk manages to hit the creature holding him with a solid hit, but his movement gets in the way of Quig who misses Odo and Navasi focus on the other bug but they both miss. Scout, however, burns the creature with another laser shot The fight continues and the bugs attack viciously, the one fighting with Navasi following her as she moves. They both score painful bites
attack:
The creatures numbers dwindle but their ferocity does not, and they continue their attacks. But the dredge attacking Navasi misses and even the one attached to Kesk is unable to proper use its claws and also does no harm rolls:
Odo swings wildly missing his mark by a mile Quig once again coordenates with Scout, both landing solid hits and killing the creature Kesk focuses his will on the dredge holding on to him blasting it with psychic force
dice:
Combat starts fast and brutal, the creatures hissing and trashing Navasi fires a shot at one of the creatures and hits, her shot grazing it Kesk tries to fight the creature holding firmly to him but doesn't manage to hurt it Quig and Scout, both used to work together manage two hits but the dredge survives Odo manages another swing at his foe, hitting again and this time finishing it The creature near Odo changes its target and attacks Navasi but misses
dice:
Kesk moves forward and hits one of the creature but it doesn't die.
Two of the bugs attack Odo but miss. The other two have more success, firmly attaching their fangs on their prey
attack!:
The group tries to contact SDF but the static that has been jamming their comms makes it difficult to understand the several voices they hear. Also, the screaming and gunfire don't help. As the group try to decipher some useful information, they notice a tremor underneath their feet and several bugs jump from the ground around them! your rolls:
secret stuff:
Soon after the smoke covers them, the group starts to hear screams and gunfire far to the East
As the group makes defensive preparations, they hear and see explosions to the north, as a large Brinnoan skyscraper is engulfed in flames and begins to topple over. Shortly afterward, a shadow moves across the landscape as a massive structure streaks across the sky above, billowing a trail of smoke.
DC 12 Culture check or DC 15 Engineering:
This is one of Suskillon’s spacedocks, crashing down from orbit. The comet like structure strikes the hills to the north of Brinnoa. There is a massive flash of white light followed a few seconds later by an ear-splitting explosion. A cloud of dust envelops the region for miles in a matter of minutes.
Navasi sends his location to the rest of the group
The group moves out and as the chaos calms down, the sounds of battle ahead become clearer and closer and they see several large Swarm
As they come nearer to the marked spot, Navasi goes scouting ahead The area was a farming field but its fences are destroyed and large craters and hastily dug trenches mar the landscape.
rolls:
Oderon:
We can't have a fight here in the middle of the civilians so we're setting the front up ahead, north towards the city. - he points to two spots in the map in the display on his table. The starfinders here, and the castrovelians here
With a flick he sends the coordinates to your datapads He pats Oderon on the shoulder - Go get'em - then he turns to a group of soldiers nearby - What are you doing standing here sniffing each other's butts? Get movin' there are bugs to kill!! Captain Brymenor nods to Oderon and leaves See you on the other side
The rest of the group manages to accelerate the flux a bit, with Navasi convincing people to calm down and some guards speakers suddenly flaring with increased power
Quig: Quig doesn't have the time to build a speaker but he sees that some are already being used and he can try to improve its power. One of the soldiers hands him one - It's not doing anything anyway - he shrugs
He then starts to work on it, maybe the sound system from that car will help...
Oderon:
At the mention of Arvin, Jaldamarrak asks How is that old grunt? We go way back, since the first Swarm invasion A particular loud explosion in the city gets him back on track Anyway, we'll have time to catch up later. Look, I know starfinders aren't soldiers, but we're really in need of more hands to try to slow them down. We need to give these evacuees as much time as we can before the critters come flooding out of the city. Can I count on you? Quig: Quig moves to the abandoned cars. In the middle of the confusion it's sometimes hard to identify them but he locates a few. They are however still turned on, their owners just opened the doors and left. The difficult part is to maneuver them out of the road with the highway completely packed. The soldiers trying to convince the drivers to open a way are barely heard in the middle of the screaming and honks.
Captain Brymenor recognizes Oderon and calls him to the conversation
The major greets Oderon with a grin extending his hand The swarm will have to bring a lot more bugs now with another vesk on our side Quigonius lokks at his rig, its screen showing Scout's view. This operation is a mess, located in an interception of several highways there are huge lines of vehicles converging here. Most of them are moving out of the city but there are also several people on foot leaving their cars to escape the traffic. This only causes more confusion and several soldiers are trying to keep the flow going
We've just arrived a few hours ago. We're still trying to sort out what to do but personally I want to kill some bugs - She looks to the city, the sound of combat clearly heard even from this distance - It's being evacuated, I thing it's lost Oderon advances through the camp and eventually finds the Captain. She's talking to a vesk who sometimes interrupts the conversation to shout some orders to passing soldiers. He looks familiar to you
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