Alright, guess it’s time to be useful. First, search the room the Pilgrims were in to see if they left anything.
After that, I’ll go see if I can’t scavenge some empty glass bottles from the city. If I can’t scavenge, I’ll go see how much I can get a case of empty bottles for (around 12 I’d assume. If I can get those for less than 10 fathoms, buy them. Otherwise get as many as 10 fathoms will get me.) Scavenge or Buy a cheap bolt of cloth or a bunch of rags. (I know you know where I’m going with this)
Once that’s done, see if I can get a price on a turret mounted flamethrower than could use Bore fuel as ammo.
Name: Harmony “Harm” Li
Description: Lean and broody looking. This woman has short black hair and is partially covered in interlocking black tattoos. She wears simple black clothes, with a knee-length Maggot Wool Coat overtop. She wears a mail shirt underneath her clothes.
Goal: Overall, Harm would like to find a place where refugees and travelers could seek refuge without dealing with the dogmatic influence of the church. Right now, though, she just wants to get away.
Stats
Str:11
Dex:11
Spe:11
End:10
Awa:11
Cun:12
Kno:10
Ner:11
Skills
Weapon smith (3)
Mechanical (2)
Lucky Shot (1)
1 unassigned
Inventory
Radio
Mail shirt (protect 3)
Crystal cutting utility knife (free to borrow)
6 Octahedrons
Gold ingot (100-120)
5 Large branches of crystalline lead
Lucky Shot (6/7)(14 rounds)
Short sword (cutting 3, pierce 2)
Voice in the Eyes- and intricate mechanical eye
Field Lighter
10 Path Markers
2 units mechanical junk
2 mechanical arms (belong to Kara and Vikkan)
14 fathoms
Besides some trash, no.
[12]
You find a half dozen fist sized spherical bottles. They're pretty thick, you think they might not break very easily.
[14]
You can't find any rags or other fabric around.
Around here, 400. Empyrean doesn't do much commercial bore manufacturing, so stuff is more expensive around here.
@RC: "Oh, it was just some Ethral Manning the front desk. I didn't think to ask a name. But I'm certain any of them would do, or at least know someone who knows. That's their whole deal after all, right?"
@Random: "He led the group that did so. I don't know if he participated in the combat but he looked quite capable of doing so."
Buy scope and bipod for 10 tokens.
Ask the Ethral if it would be easy for someone to recognize the source and if there is something they'd like us to do there or retrieve from there or merely record its position.
Name: "Kara" is what most humans call her, though the closest pronunciation would be Kr'ra-Kax
Race: Corven (advantage for climb, disadvantage for falls)
Appearance: She is a crow-like Corven with matte-black feathers. A bit short. Constantly moves her head around, examining her surroundings. Moves her tail up and down whenever she's excited.
Age: Adult, but just barely
Goal: Wants to find artifacts and experiences that she can use to make an (under)world-famous museum. Wants to prove herself to her mother and piss off her brother with her success (both financially and socially).
StatusSacrificed left arm to reverse time (eaten by giant Shluck-like thing). Bandaged and given spider venom for the pain.
StatsStr:9
Dex:13
Spe:13
End:7
Awa:12
Cun:10
Kno:12
Ner:11
Skills1 unspent
Rifle: 1
Medical: 1
Translate: 1
Acrobatics: 1
Caving: 1
Machine Control: 1
Stealth: 1
Geology: 1
Archeology: 1
Navigation: 1
Inventory13 fathoms
Ethral Rifle (rifle 3, pierce 3) 6/7
2 Ethral Rifle magazines 7/7
Field Lighter (Fire 2)
Ethral Silk rope 100 ft
Grappling Hook
Simple Clothes
Kara's DiaryIn StorageCrystal Tablets (diary about some construction project, inventory, obedience rod instructions, construct assembly instructions)
Church Documents (document ownership and events, and recommend favorable treatment)
Cot
Book (Adventures of Pilgrim)
Deck of Cards
Mechanical Arm (not installed)
Crystal Friend
Bomb collar (unlocked)
All bomb collar remotes
Ok.
The source would be the main hive. It would probably be pretty noticeable due to the sheer size. They ask for the location, plus any samples, observation, or other data you can gather. The more the better.
"Professional installation is expensive and I wonder if Drett would be jealous if I didn't take his services... That aside, I didn't find the information I wanted. A shame."
Ready to finish the run.
Name: Vikkan Laerthe
Description: A human from Anvil and a moderate Chthonic who was born and raised close in the neighborhood of the Hammerfall boreyard, where his parents were employed as menial workers. Being so close to a place so filled with machinery and boring machines left a lasting impression on Vikkan, who became a furnace helper, then a drivemaster's apprentice until he finally reached the controls of a bore. He's quite good at conducting driving bores and, most importantly, he deeply enjoys his work.
Bore love aside, Vikkan is also generally quite friendly and good-humored even when he's not behind a bore's controls. He is, however, aware of his limitations out of the control room, and he'd rather leave most other matters to more skilled people. What he lacks in intellectual education he displays in polite curiosity, and he tends to be interested in listening even to topics he can only vaguely grasp, making for a good talking and drinking buddy if nothing else.
At odds with his friendliness, he looks rugged, if young. His hair is dark brown and cut short, and he has a well-groomed handlebar mustache (though he's been known to let it grow and style it into a horseshoe at times). A small diagonal scar moves from his right eyebrow to the bridge of his nose. His skin is brown and displays a few burns thanks to a few years of furnace and boiler work. He's fairly hairy, with his shirt's sleeves covering hairy arms and a few spots of scar tissue. His uniform is made of thick cloth and utilitarian, overalls, a long-sleeved shirt and a cap. His major concession to vanity is keeping his uniform and mustache impeccable.
He doesn't have a right hand.Goal: To deep driving bores and having fun while doing it. It's not a difficult dream, even if it can be hard at times.
StatsStr: 11
Dex: 11
Spe: 10
End: 11
Awa: 13
Cun: 10
Kno: 11
Ner: 11
Skills (1 point unspent)
+3 Vehicle (Bore)
+2 Navigation
+1 Defense (Mail Shirt)
Inventory-Conductor's Clothes
-Dynamo Lantern
-Black Book (Copy)
-Field Lighter
-Mail Shirt
-Short Sword
-Rifle
-Knife
-100ft silk rope
-142 Fathoms
-Neck chain (that used to hold a black flame that actually never existed)
-Black Flame
-Clockwork arm
1 Mission and counting
Level 0: +3 Awareness
Level 1: +1 Str, Dex, End, Kno, Ner. 1 skill point unused.
Okay
Try to haggle down the price of that book. Buy the book, but not if the haggling somehow drives the price up.
How much for a padded and sturdy box to store the beaker artifact in?
Snippity.
"Quite a haul, all that from one short trip, nice work indeed.
Yeah, speaking to Leon should prove most interesting. And if he usually pays as royally as the church did for that first artifact, potentially lucrative as well!
Hunting down the lair of the giant ants is something we could do I suppose. But honestly, as long as those creatures don't harass any of the pilgrims or pose a threat to anyone, perhaps they should just be left to their own devices.
A weapon, you say? Most distressing indeed, and here I was just walking around with it. You are correct, I'll have to find some way to store it more securely to prevent any accidents. Depending on its exact properties it could also be a useful tool though, hmm...
Did you catch the name of the person who gave you this information? I'll have to question him further to see what else he might be able to tell us about this 'eater' or the gemstone people in general."
Then, he grabbed his radio so that the next thing he said was also broadcast to the rest of the team.
"I hope we are ready to move on now? Our client is still waiting for the goods we promised him after all!"
Name: Adam Blavatsky Darvaza
Description: A young man of slightly pale complexion and eternal 9 o’clock shadow, he was raised in a small village. While the village priest and passing mystics droned with endless sermons of the Church and their teachings, what had always captivated young Adam’s attention more were the stories of his Granny.
Old stories of the world as it once was, before people were forced to flee to the caves and crannies of this damp hell. Of warm days where pleasant green plants tickled your feet as you walked through them and a cool breeze blew through your hair. Where food was plentiful, nature was benign and endless vistas reached as far as they eye could see.
Adam was nominally a card-carrying member of the church, though he mostly did it for the connections and perks that brought. They were powerful and had ancient lore, all things he would need to fulfill his true heart’s desire: to return to the surface, vanquish the madness that tainted their homeland and reconquer paradise.
Goal: Plunge the secrets of the depths below to find an answer to the horrors above.
Stats Str: 10
Dex: 10
Spe: 11
End: 10
Awa: 11
Cun: 10
Kno: 10
Ner: 13
SkillsDiving: +3
Stealth: +2
Occult: +1
Inventory1 soldier chestplate
Clothing: simple priest robes, shortened a bit so as to less restrict his movements
1 ethral rifle [10 rounds] (pierce 2)
2 black flame
2 Silent Night
5 worm blood
1 minor artifact
1 beaker artifact (found in crystal ruins)
1 crystal construct
Transport mission papers
1 black book copy
1 black book
1 empyrean city map
1 field lighter
1 radio
36 fathoms
-loaned 40 to Cara (Tiruin)
297 fathoms (payment from pilgrim escort)
1 unspent skillpoint
[14]
"Can I have it for free?"
"No."
"Hmmmm how about for....30 fathoms?"
"....Sure."
You hand them over.
A nice padded metal box would be 8 fathoms.
Damn it all - I knew this was the dangerous run.
Hand lighter to Nyw while moving to tend to Ashul. Preferably with the combatants between me and the entire rest of this courtyard. Use the zeolite along with whatever methods my bag gives me to stop the bleeding and stabilize him.
Character Sheet
You toss the lighter to Nyw and run over to Ashul. You skid to a stop and kneel down next to him, in the spreading pool of blood at his side. There is a horrible sewer smell rising up from him. Not good. You're not very versed in the anatomy of Abominations...to your knowledge no one is. They're too varied, too nonsensical, you just have to improvise. [14] You carefully peel away the clothing around the wound and look for things you can fix. You see his diaphragm up above the cut. Good, chest cavity intact, he won't suffocate from collapsed lungs. Stomach split, contents are all over, intestine too. That will kill him in a few hours. Worry about it later. Nicked the abdominal aorta. That will kill him now. You dump zeolite powder onto the wound. It seals up the edges of the cut immediately and manages some lesser bleeding but only manages to slow the arterial bleeding. You bought him time but not a lot.
Auft makes distressed trilling noises. The first guardian had been scary, but dealt with admirably. The second was shaping up to be as dangerous as it looked.
"Screen for me," she ordered her goon timidly.
Get ready to shoot the thing when it next appears. Order my goon to stand between me and where I assume it'll next appear.
Name: Auft Kindheart
Description: Standing 3'10", with even fluffier than usual snow-white fur, this Ethral radiates adorable innocence even by the standards of her kind. Her porcelain-white mask is a circular shape carved into slices, each bearing a smiling face with eyes and mouths arched in joy, and adorned with pink blush marks. Her cloak is similarly pure white and a little too large for her, adding to her cute and defenseless appearance.
Goal: To amass and improve loyal pets and slaves.
Stats
Str: 8
Dex: 13
Spe: 10
End: 8
Awa: 8
Cun: 16
Kno: 13
Ner: 10
Skills
+1 Medical
+1 Translate
+1 Acrobatics
+1 Persuasion
+1 Stealth
+1 Animal Handling
+1 Archeology
+1 Biological
+1 Chemical
+1 Occult
[1 Skill Point]
Inventory
82 Fathoms
Ethral Rifle [7/7]
Doctor's Bag
Dodecahedron Spider-Thing: Fist-sized dodecahedron body, long unjointed legs that move in very slow cascades. Ceased moving upon being picked up. Can be trained in simple commands via clear hand signals, bops, and repetition.
2 quarter-inch cubes of impossibly heavy black stuff: Estimated 50 lbs weight total
Thug with metal teeth in his mouth and on his arm
Mediocre Skull Mug: A mug made from a skull. It works, but it's pretty meh considering it's made from a skull.
Shitty Bone Pan Flute: Several long bones crudely strapped together, long to short. Despite this, the actual notes are arranged randomly, out of tune, and lack much range.
Inanimate Vertebra Scarab: A bug-thing with a single human vertebra for a body, fingerbones for legs, teeth for mandibles, and so on. Needs an appropriate sacrifice to animate, like a "large" insect.
You drag your minion over by one hand and position him in front of you, a little off to the left so you can still shoot straight ahead. You cock the rifle and place your finger on the trigger, waiting for the thing to show itself.
"Someone burn down the tree, force it to come out of hiding."
Protect Drett and his patient from the locust guardian, attack it with my moon blade if it tries to attack me or Drett and AsHul, otherwise shoot it with my rifle.
Name: Alex Wells
Description: A middle aged man standing 5'7" feet tall. He has short brown hair and an unkempt beard.
Goal: Exploring the depths and collecting its wealth.
Stats:
Str: 11
Dex: 11
Spe: 10
End: 11
Awa: 11
Cun: 12
Kno: 11
Ner: 11
Skills:
Explosives 2
Mechanical 1
Survival 1
Caving 1
Chemical 2
Geology 1
1 Skill point
Inventory:
Dynamo Lantern
Field Lighter
5 TNT
Bladed Shovel (Cut 3)
Mail Shirt
39 Fathoms
Crystal box of golem limbs
Golem buddy
Black Flame (Cut 3)
Rifle (Pierce 2) 9/10
8 Structural Junk
Grappling Hook
Moon bladed staff
You follow Drett over to Ashul and put yourself between them and the tree. You carefully rest the staff against your shoulder as you draw your rifle, ready to drop the gun and snatch up the polearm if you need to.
"Oh dear, oh dear. I have TNT, but I'm not sure how to use it on such a fast moving target. I'll try and help Trett stabilize Abdul for now!"
Should Nyw fail in setting the tree on fire, light one of my TNT charges and throw it at the tree. Only do this if nobody of my team is left within the blast radius of the tree, obviously.
Help Drett stabilize Ashul and stop the bleeding. Apply pressure to the wound(s) where needed.
Name: Clate
Race: Shluck
Description: Being a Shluck, Clate is rarely seen outside of his environmental suit. Inside, he is the standard albino mollusk, with his only true defining characteristic being the alternating white/borwn pattern of his beak, much like on a nautilus shell. His environmental suit and exoskeltons are full of scuff marks and small blemishes from work, but the knowledgable observer will notice that it is mechanically kept in tip-top shape. He wears a toolbelt and a satchel to store his tools and other knickknacks, and has a blue cap perched on top of his helmet.
Goal: To create great works of craftsmanship and become filthy rich in the process.
Stats
Str: 8
Dex: 11
Spe: 9
End: 10
Awa: 10
Cun: 16 (+3)
Kno: 12
Ner: 11
Skills (1 point unused)
Electronics 1
Mechanical 1
Biological 1
Chemical 1
Occult 1
Weaponsmith 1
Armorsmith 1
Stealth 1
Steal 1
Explosives 1
Inventory
Clothing: A tool belt that can be modified to fit the exoskeleton, a satchel and a blue cap with "If it ain't broke, fix it" embroidered on.
Mail shirt (Made to integrate directly into the exosuit, protecting surface that houses Shluck including head.Protect 3)
Bladed Shovel - handle coated with Pseudomagnetic mortar
Knife (cut2, pierce2)
Rifle (pierce2, 10/10 magazine)
TNT x5
Dynamo lantern
Field lighter
Path markers x10
"Muggy"(skull mug scrimshawed with "can we fix it?" on the side, "No, it's fucked." on the bottom. Has trigger on the inside of the spine-handle that, when squeezed, caused the mandible to open and close)
2 Octahedrons - supposedly replicate materials
1 container of Pseudomagnetic mortar
labradorite/Obedience rod
100ft silk rope
3 structural junk
30 chemical junk
1 gold ingot
143 Fathoms
Crystal Babies
2. 8 sided diamond (looks like Ramiel from EVA and floats). 8 inches to an edge
3. Crystal snake. hiss. 18 inches long.
Warehouse/bore storage:
1. Dodecahedron, no limbs, rolls. Fist sized.
4. Spiky daddy long legs like Irony has. 1 foot legs, fist sized body.
5. Thing looks like (see pic). about 8 inches to a side.
7. Wheel sort of thing that has a fat inside edge and tapers to a sharp edge on the outside. Foot and a half in diameter.
1 corpse (missing: skull, neck vertebrea, some bones)
Bomb Collar
Slate box with multicolour crystal toothpick - supposedly turns someone into a gemperson.
Spool of thermoreactive wire.
Acoustic guitar (Metal + guardbone, totally mundane.)
Box with "kidnapper bell"
6 Octahedrons - supposedly replicate materials
You kneel down next to Drett and ask what you can do to help. He tears some fabric from Ashul's clothing and tells you to press it down into the artery, try and hold some of the blood back. You carefully push your hand into the open wound -Ashul screams and tenses- and try to hold the fabric on the right area.
Relic Team
-gurgle-
Attempt to consume one Silent Night. If AsHul succeeds and can feel the effects calming him, Dive:
Telzach -> Udyne (4 rolls)
reinforce telzach 3x, udyne 3x
final nerve roll, final endurance roll. Don't forget the dive skill bonus.
Undo the damage to his body.
Name: AsHul
Description:Former human. Awful, ugly, indifferent
Goal:To find God
Stats
Str:10 Dex:9 Spe:9 End:11 Awa:12 Cun:11 Kno:11 Ner:16
Skills
3 Diving
2 Animal Handling
1 Survival
1 Weapon skill: Guitar
Inventory
Relic Fragment
Black Book (copy, strata 1,2,4)
3 Silent Night
6 Worm Blood
100 ft of rope
1 knife (cut/pierce 2)
2 Occult Junks
59 Fathoms (One magnetically welded to the wall of his room in the Bore, one "shiny," 57 standard)
168 Fathoms (Team Account. Kept on AsHul's person for safekeeping. Stored separately from his personal funds.
Stored at warehouse during Relic Vision:
Firing Control Module (Brass Brain)
Book of sheet music (from Balaram) [stack of about 100 pages bound by three brass rings along the top of the sheets]
his former bomb collar - made of something like demagnetized neodymium.
One Bone-fretted haunted electric guitar
One mundane acoustic guitar with wave patterns in abalone and turquoise
Notes:Anvil: Local parish: currently looking for 8 to do a communal vision with a minor relic to extract the relic core.
Travellers' guild is offering a relic retrieval job. Local hazards ('living').
[7] You lay as still as you can and use your right hand to dig into your bag and remove one of the vials of Silent Night. You drink it down in one gulp and wait. Despite your split stomach, enough of the drug gets absorbed to grant you its effects for a short time. You close your eyes and focus with what time you have. The horrible pain in your side throbs rapidly and then diminishes. You look down to see blood flowing backwards, up off the ground and into your side. Flesh knits closed and luckily Clate is smart enough to pull his hand out before it does. When the effects of the dive finally end you can see that your injury has closed up entirely, however it looks weak. Its almost as though it targeted every cell of your damaged flesh and returned it to how it was just a fraction of a second before it failed. You can see a line of thin skin where the cut used to be and you get the feeling that if you moved around too much it might split back open like a freshly sutured wound. And maybe the flesh below it might as well. Should be careful for now.
The withdrawl kicks in a few seconds later; its nowhere near as bad as before, maybe because you partially undid it, maybe because you only got a fraction of the dose.
"A good plan, Alex. Does anyone possess fire? I do not, but am most suited for the task. Everyone, please move with Drett, towards Ashul. I cannot protect two groups simultaneously."
First, set down the murakumo on the ground. This creature sounds fragile, and if it's moving that fast, a solid punch at the right moment should do a number on it. Plus, the 'kumo's fragile and slow.
Second, request some tool to create fire, and if one is provided, set the tree afire--either by running to the tree and burning the wood, or igniting the leaves if they're within reach or lifting in one of the reverse cycles. Strike at or disarm the guardian if an opportunity is provided, but the priority is burning the tree.
If no fire-producing tools are provided... Protect the group of allies that possesses the most ranged combatants. Try to intercept the guardian if it attacks that group, and again, either punch or disarm it.
Name: Nyw'geuq Otin Sunam; calls himself "The Lords' Child"
Description:
((Only one murakumo, but hey! Dual wielding them is stupid anyway.))
Goal: Inscrutable, which is code for "Guarding others within this dive-trance-dream-thing which he does not understand".
Stats:Str:14
Dex:8
Spe:10
End:14
Awa:14
Cun:8
Kno:7
Ner:10
Skills:Unarmed: +1
Defense Skill: +3 (Full Plate)
Vehicle Skill: +1
Caving: +1
Navigation: +1
Murakumo: +1
Inventory:
Full Plate Armor [Protective 4]
Crystal Murakumo [Cut 6, Pierce 3, Fragile]
Ornamental Mask of the Child
Probably left in the warehouse:
A hooked cleaver [Cut 3]
Two knives [Cut 2, Pierce 2]
Guard rifle [Pierce 2]
A bunch of bloody guard garments, to be used as raw material.
You place the murokumo down and take the lighter. You do a quick glance to make sure the beast isn't coming yet and then take off towards the tree at a dead sprint. [1] You cover the distance to the tree with amazing speed for a man of your size, flicking the lighter on and dropping it into the dried leaves at the base of the tree. Fire immediately spreads from the leaves up to engulf the tree. it moves as fast as the accelerated passage of time, and the entire thing goes up like flash paper, burning to a black husk in a fraction of a second. The Locust Guardian drops from the branches as the fire starts, swinging its blade in a falling blow towards your head. [1] (too bad you already have +3 in your armor skill) You can't dodge away in time so you shift your stance and take the blow on a rounded pauldron. The attack slides off, deflected, though it shaves off a piece of the armor as it goes. The Locust lands in a heavy crouch in front of you, blade biting into the flat stones.
Time is moving forward. 
Author
Topic: DIG: Heresy (Read 385369 times)