Sorry about the hiatus. Internet woes, among other things.
((@GM: How about his shield? Couldn't it be used to defend his body as instructed?))
"Fix him."
Milno says to Faith, turning his back afterwards and returning to staring at the swarm of oversized shades.
"It seems they are attracted to sound. I'd say vibrations, but they didn't care about me until the sound of his body scraping against the sand called the attention of one of them."
"If the matter is sound...Does anyone have anything noisy here? I want to make a test."
If Milno still has any metal poles with him (I think there should be one or two remaining), throw one of them a little far away in a way it won't fall tip first, to attract them to other place and away from Simus, throwing the second if the first isn't enough. If those fail, take one of the samples from the metallic trees and throw it, holding it correctly so as to avoid being cut.
If it works, help Simus to get to the group afterwards and get Maurice's hand as well if it hasn't been retrieved along with him. Use that shield to protect from any attacks (preference for her) just in case.
If it doesn't work, do it anyway.
You huck the last of your metal poles off into the dark. It lands with a soft thump somewhere out beyond the light. The shade like creatures seem to take notice immediately, tearing off into the dark after the sound. They stay away long enough for you to gather up Maurice's severed hand and help Simus limp back to the group. You can still hear them chittering somewhere in the dark, but they seem to have lost interest in you and your teammates.
".... Thanks Faith. But I am not Tut Ankh Armor or whatever his name was."
Test the strength of the bandages.
Actually, wait a bit. Wouldn't want to risk opening my wounds or suit.
You do about the only thing a man in your position can do: bide your time.
"Good, good. They can't see us, only hear us"
Travis tries to find the smallest shade at the edge of the group of shades. He takes his largest container and scoops it up. If it starts making loud noises that attract the others he throws the container into the darkness and quietly walks back to the group
All the Shade things have wandered off beyond the bounds of the light. Hmm.
Allow incoming communications from Milno again.
This is... surreal. And exceedingly creepy. I'm not surprised they navigate by sound though, as this place doesn't have light naturally.
Milno, if you help me up and let me use you or bring something for me to use for support, I can walk along, they only damaged one leg. Hopefully that won't attract them as much as dragging me.
And yes, I am recording.
Record the shades while being helped out of the swarm.
You record what you can of the shades before they skitter off into the dark and Milno helps you back to the path.
"Er, sorry," she said to Chin. "Better too much than too little though, right...?"
She then turned to Maurice.
"Eush. Don't suppose you found his hand?"
Stop Maurice's bleeding.
"As for sound, we have our voices, obviously. If you mean something that won't draw them to us directly, then no, but we can always throw rocks or bits of tree, assuming we don't need them back."
[med:5+1]
You use medi-foam to fill in the deep wounds in Maurice's legs, but when that runs out you decide to resort to more...Inventive methods. Namely, you stop the bleeding from his stump by turning your cutting torch to the lowest level and cauterizing the wound via cutting off another bit of arm. Oh well, thats what we have prosthetics for, after all.
Charro stood by with the others, frowning as logic poked holes in his plan.
"Hrm... Maybe we should negotiate. That could work." He scratched absently at his jaw, keeping his hands ready to quickdraw his hat. "Does anyone have a jar, by any chance? We could shout into it, seal it, then throw it off into the distance. When the jar breaks, the shout would escape and distract them!"
Sometimes, he amazed even himself with his ideas.
>Make helpful suggestions whilst watching for any developments.
[speech:4]
"Ok, from now on we should try following what the guide said and not being idiots! Because we've got 2 dead, one mauled, another cocooned and a third gimped. We're running out of people to injure for our amusement."