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From the Diary of Rikku Yuffina Kyrus: Iron Gods Session 17

Our Brave Band of Adventurers the Crimson Lotus:

  • Charisma, a “human” -mutant- sorceress whose power source is Gamma Radiation which she was exposed to as a child.  As a child of the Atom her hair goes green in the presence of radiation and she progressively gets greener the more powerful spells she casts (and as she gets angry).  She has no love for the Technic League.
  • Heidt, a ranger who has traded an affinity for nature for an affinity for machines.  This android has mastered cybertheurgy as well as the lasgun.  Has chosen the mechromancer archetype (blog post at some later point!).  Seeking to learn more about his history he has become an archaeological expert on all things related to the Rain of Stars.
  • Rikku, an elven rogue who was adopted by Khonnir Baine when he found her wandering the wasteland near Torch more than a decade ago.  She claims to be a blood elf from a far-away land.  Her history is tied up with a nearby ruin.
  • Sylvanus, a dark elf monk who escaped the clutches of mind flayer slavemasters in the area of the Scar of the Spider after a daring raid by surface dwelling heroes freed her.
  • Brokthor, a human fighter who was raised by dwarfs and thinks he IS a dwarf.
  • Tufast, a human cleric who serves Thor –  power of thunder and lightning.  Much like his barbarian family he hates technology and has a particular spite for robots.  He sees the cleansing power of lightning as the perfect antidote to the curse of the robot infestation of Nimmeria.
  • Whiskifiss, a ratman ranger with a pet rust monster.  He likes to sleep in small compartments – for example a storage locker on the rhino.

The Choking Tower

Session 17

By Rikku Yuffina Kyrus

       When we threw the rock down, we heard a cling. We climb down, Whiskifiss with us, and hit the shallow, gunky water.  There are dead computers, buttons, and keyboards.  We see a sign in Gothic that says, “AURORA MANUFACTORUM.”  We can see a partially open door and every now and then, a flash of electricity zings past. Brocktha has a quick look, and says we probably can’t get past without getting hurt from the electricity. I go to disable it and fail. I get shocked with a quick shudder of electricity.  I make a second attempt, using Hiedt’s help, block off the center of the electricity.  We all walk through safely.  In the center of this room is a desk with screens and keyboards.  A flashing, bright white button is on a keyboard.  Behind the desk are two double doors in front of each other, jammed open by bits of scrap metal.   I press the button.  The screens flicker, and then turns on:

       A man with a long white beard is peering at the screen. He has a gray robe and a matching hat, very much like a wizard. He nods and steps back then he says, to what seems like an empty room, “As I thought. While this terminal accepted my spell’s magical charge, it’s unlinked to any sort of central archive. We’ll not be able to extract any significant information here.”

       A second, much deeper voice from an unknown source replies, “But what you seek still lies within the ruins of this ship, does it not, Master Xoud?”

       The man nods again. “I believe so. We will need to explore further. There may be additional defenses though. This is why I called upon you, Sahasho – you will lead the way.” At this point, the man walks away, a swirling cloud of dust and wind following him before both are eclipsed by the screen’s edge. The screen flickers, then goes dark.  

After the video, we walk through the double doors.  This room is paved with old metal debris.  Long tubes are to the right, one is leaking black ooze.  A door sits to our right and lots to our left.  We can see a corridor turning a corner at the end of the room. Hiedt gets the feeling he has been here before.  When we step in, some of the debris shakes.   Four deformed androids come out from under the debris.  Strangely, their circuits are red, unlike Hiedt’s, which are blue. They pick up scrappy javelins and advance.

It is clear they consider us a threat.  They throw their useless javelins and hit Charisma, Tufast and me. Sylvanus jumps up and activates her shurikan gauntlet. It sinks into one of the androids cover, doing little damage.  Whiskifiss jumps on Rusty and charges into the androids cover.  Rusty stumbles and falls, Whiskifiss going with him.  Hiedt shoots a radiant bullet and pierces one of the androids flesh. The androids come out of their hiding places and stab Whisky and his pet.  They quickly jump back under cover. Brocktha carefully walks to the androids, picking his foothold with caution.  I dash to Whiskifiss. Unfortunately I trip and fall onto the debris floor.  Tufast sends crackling bolts of lightning from his fingertips, shocking the androids out of their bones.  Charisma makes fiery rays come from her palms, and scorches the androids. One of the androids goes crazy.  It hacks and slashes, Whiskifiss, Brocktha, the other androids, and me.

Suddenly, a door bursts open and a female android charges in. She has blue hair, and a matching gun and clothes. Her face looks a little bit unaligned and she has a smaller hand, which flops about by her side. She raises her gun and shouts, “To me space marines! Repel the borders! Show no mercy to the xenos!” Sylvanus advances and punches the crazy android with her fists, and it falls to the ground. Brocktha whams one of the androids and it goes crazy too (DM’s note: the androids have a berserk mode when bloodied attacking every adjacent character with machine slam).  It blindly hits Brocktha and its companions. After a reaction from Brocktha, the android’s body goes limp and slips onto the debris. The blue haired android fires an icy cold bullet at Brocktha, dealing a lot of damage.  The other androids attack Whiskifiss and me with their javelins.  Whiskifiss hits one of the androids with his two swords. That android goes berserk and attacks us over and over again.  I stab the crazed android, finishing it.  Hiedt fires two radiant bullets at the last android.  Surprisingly, it clings to reality, not going nuts.  Tufast casts a lightning spell and the android dies, before it can even go crazy.  Charisma uses her wand and holds the blue haired person.

Just then, another four androids stagger out of one of the doors and surround the blue hair girl. Sylvanus pulls caps from two grenades and sends them flying into the huddled androids. After they go off, we can see all the androids going crazy and attacking each other. They stab, slash, and scream in pain when they gat hit badly. After their crazed fight, there are only two left, both are wounded. They move forward and jam their weapons into our bodies. We are all badly wounded, but not enough to stop us. I sneak up on one of the androids and slot my dagger into his skin. He screams and lifelessly falls to the floor. Whiskifiss cuts the last android’s body up. A painful scream escapes his lips before it shrivels to the ground.

The blue haired, and the last, android moves towards us, breaking free of the magical hold. She fires another freezing bullet at Brocktha. Her hand moves towards her grenade filled belt. Hiedt fires his lasgun at the android, dealing some damage. Brocktha moves up to her, and whams her in the stomach. She bends a little bit, then straightens and says, “You wont take my mind! The Dominion can’t have my mind!” Tufast casts some healing magic on Brocktha.  Charisma scorches the android’s body with rays of hot magic.  Brocktha pulls his chains sword from his bag of holding and flicks the switch. The room is filled with the roar of the red chain sword. He swings the chain sword at the android and cuts her in half. Her fluid like blood spills out onto the floor.

After dressing our wounds with magic and our medical boxes, looting, and searching the room, we enter the open door where the Seerath came from.  A table sits in the center of this room.  The table has scattered terminator skulls on it.  There are worthless, scrappy swords and items around. There is a box like thing that Hiedt identifies as a half finished long-range communicator.  It looks like Seerath was trying to build one of them.  We search and find three sets of walkie-talkies (mciro-beads), but nothing else.  Charisma bags the terminator skulls.  We go to the room the deformed androids came out of. It is a small room with a scattered mess of broken metal pieces.  We search and find nothing.  We walk to the room close to where we fought. We try to open it and find it is closed, and locked.  Brocktha forces it open.  Thick dust covers the small room. Boxes and other things are stacked up at the end.  Hiedt says he just had a flash back of him grabbing a lasgun. This is probably where he was made.  We search and find a hololithic player. We flick the switch and see an I inside an eye.  A deep, male, voice says:

       “The lord-Captain summoned me to his quarters just now and introduced me to two eldar! I knew the Lord-Captain was unorthodox and I also know that his success in the Halo Stars has protected him from the Inquisition for decades. But even I was surprised to find eldar on the ship. He was having dinner with them no less! Apparently he came across their ship while traveling and brought them onboard. The ship was odd and not a standard eldar ship from what I could make out. More importantly, this pair of eldar – polite to a fault – were powerful psykers. Though they called it magic it seemed to me they were tapping into the warp. Not only were they extremely powerful they didn’t seem to be corrupted by the taint. Intriguing. I would like to spend more time with them to learn more. God-Emperor forgive me!

We turn it off and go to the small room near the corridor.  We search and find some yucky violet rations. We go down the corridor.  The walls are half broken and there are android parts everywhere.  We walk on and the wall falls on us.  Some of us dodge out of the way, but others, and me, have to crawl out.  We keep walking and find ourselves in a big room.  Dirt and rubble cover the floor.  Ancient stains of blood are mixed with robot parts.  A partially buried, dead robot is under rubble.  When we walk in, three big gearsman emerge from the rubble.  They all say, “Lower your weapons and submit the traitor Casandalee, and you shall be spared. You have ten seconds to comply.”  After a ten second countdown they attack.

Sylvanus punches one of the gearsman with her powerful fists.  I join Sylvanus and stab one of them with my dagger.  Suddenly, without warning, Tufast casts a powerful spell (shatter).  It kills the gearsman but knocks me out. Charisma than casts the same spell and almost kills me.  I hear the thud of Sylvanus being knocked out too.  Whiskifiss slashes one of the gearsman.  The gearsman punch Whiskifiss with their metal bound fists.  Hiedt fires two light fast bullets at one of the gearsman, making it fall to the ground with a sickening thud.  Brocktha slams the last gearsman, denting its armor.  I get up, and help Sylvanus.  Hiedt shoots two more laser blasts, and blasted holes in the gearsman’s armor.  It falls to the ground, with its buddies.  An unnoticed door bursts open.   A heavy metal, bulky gearsman stomps into the room.  It says, “Primary objective complete. Fugitive exterminated but remains required per UNITY directive one.  Please submit the traitor Casandalee or face immediate execution. You have ten seconds to comply.”  After another ten seconds, the gearsman attacks.  It reveals a lasgun and shoots Hiedt.  Whiskifiss tries to slash the gearsman, but the attack seems to bounce off.  Brocktha swings his chain sword at the gearsman, cutting a hole through it.  Tufast casts a healing spell, and I feel better.  Sylvanus can stand now.  Charisma uses her fiery rays and scorches the enemy.  Sylvanus disappears, then reappears behind the gearsman and punches it in the back.  I sneak up on the gearsman and stab it.  It crashes to the ground with the other gearsman.  We search the room and loot.  All we find is the lasgun on the mighty gearsman.

We cross the room and enter the battered and smashed door. There is a room and two doors. One of them has a small window and a sticker on the door says, “CANISTER ACCESS.” The other door has no window and has a sticker on it saying, “NANOTECH LABORATORY.” We peer into the window. We see an eerie orange gas and thirteen canisters.  We unlock the other door.  There is a desk with one small computer.  There are shelves and pieces of armor are scattered everywhere.  Next to this is a ripped up floor.  Everything is dark.  When we enter, the armor swirls and animates.  It says, in the same deep voice as the video, “I am Xoud’s air elemental helper.  I am waiting for Xoud, at his command.  I was asked to guard this place until he comes back.  So mind you, don’t take anything from this room.”  We search and find some loot but do not take it.  We go back to talk with the elemental.  He is Xoud’s helper and was asked to wait here until Xoud comes back.  That was seven years ago.  They came to this ruin and found a dead body of an android in this room.  “Xoud got excited and he took it away to his tower as I waited here. Can you break the contract and send me back?”  We take a long rest. We examine the ripped floor and Heidt says its a power conduit and we can potentially charge it up by using twenty batteries.  The power turns back on.  The computer starts complaining of a gas leak.  We follow the instructions and it stops complaining.  We look in the other room and see the gas go away.  We enter and find thirteen empty canisters.  We can hear machinery and go to where we fought the androids.  Tubes and machines are slowly making androids.  We go to the computer and put it onto standby mode.

Posted in Dungeons & Dragons, Game Log, Iron Gods

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