The next moment Vind's arrow finds it on its front leg, causing it to lose its balance and slump down with a sad whistle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX_lxMLhJiw
?
It says "This video is not available". I don't know what reason one could possibly have to either copyright the noise of a whistle or restrict its use in Europe.
Anyway, those things are a strange mix of grasshoper, antelope, bird, shark and dinosaur, so I don't see why not. Imagine them how you will. No matter how good one is with words, I think it is impossible for one to convey the sounds they imagine if they don't exist in the world. So I don't think I'll ever be able to tell you exactly how I imagine Cacolopes to be or sound like.
"Yeah okay fine, the carrot dimension probably isn't that interesting. No promises if something like this happens with Cheetos, though."
Mmm, Cheetos. Summon a bag and munch on them while I try to remember what we were doing here again.
No idea man. You actually led the group here in this poor village, so I thought you had a reason for it. Maybe you wanted to help them find their friends and save them from the monsters, maybe you just wanted to explore, maybe you hallucinated an exclamation mark over the mayor's head, I don't know.
You ponder this among others of life's grand questions while munching on an oversized bag of cheetos. The bag says party-sized, so you guess it's meant to be enough to serve your entire party.
Campaign, Ike!
((Though the +1 endurance likely makes it impossible, it would be funny if I did actually collide with Alan and die if I'm reading the implied rolls right.))
"No, dude, like seriously, don't jump into the goddamn portal."
Be ready to potentially tackle Alan again if he's still intent on diving into the goddamn portal.
Also get the minions to work on making sure the bandaged dude is all right, and also make sure they look out for any other approaching Taroids.
I don't know about instant death, but severe injury is certainly possibly. You just have to roll high but equal strength and then low endurance and then you're both down in the most embarrassing manner ever. Well, no, not ever, I bet there are much worse things you could come up with.
You get your men to spread out and set some lookouts while they clear the area. You also keep an ear out, ready to warn them if there's any sign of danger. A couple of them also get to work on the injured spearman.
Their search doesn't reveal any more more monsters, only corpses covered in that grey fluid. But they manage to find a few civilians, including a large group hiding locked in the basement of a store. They gather outside the town's entrance, but you're not sure what you should do with them. You could just send them down the road towards the east, the mayor did say that some people escaped towards the east.
Among the civilians, there's the wife and son of one of your men, who after embracing them, proceeds to thank you profusely. Others among your men and the civilians join him in thanking you for your help and commending you and your companions on your performance. You even get two new volunteers, a butcher and his son joining you with large and nasty-looking cleavers.
The surrounding area is mostly quiet, but you can hear noise in the distance, accompanied by cries of a beast you've heard before but never seen. It doesn't take your enhanced hearing to notice them, they're quite loud. One of the men identifies them as Cacolopes.
"Find a chokepoint while I buy time!"
Time for a power-play. I still have a lot of fire, time to use it. I shift from defensive walls to a set of good-sized spheres of flame, some near me and some farther out, and wait for the next to show. I'm going to burn them down as they expose themselves. I dedicate two spheres of flame to simply setting fire to anything flammable in the area to give me more fire to work with.
You burn the downed monster before it has a chance to get back up while you and Vind retreat from the advancing cries of the monsters, followed by an orrery of floating fire.
<♫As the sky darkens
Becoming darker than the night...♫>Two more of the beasts jump from the roofs and land behind you, snapping their teeth at you. You turn around to get a better view and send two of your spheres at them. You blast one of them before it has a chance to react, tearing through its resistance and incinerating it before it has a chance to react. The other jumps above the fireball and towards you. An arrow finds it in the head as it lands right in front of you. But the beast appears merely disoriented, not dead, even though you saw the tip of the arrow disappear deep inside the smoke-like darkness.
<♫What could be the cause of all this?
Twisting their minds
Twisting their souls♫>You continue moving backwards as fast as you dare while sending more fire against the monster. You can hear more of its kind above you. Another arrow finds it on its neck but it doesn't appear to be anything more than annoyed by it. It attempts to jump on you but you raise your arms to to block it. You manage to block its legs just enough to stop it from throwing you down, although your arm hurts a lot because of it, like it was whipped by a sturdy wooden stick. That momentary contact between you also felt... weird. In a bad way.
You bring your fire to bear on it and you feel it get burned for a few moments before it jumps away from you.
<♫Now everyone is corrupted
Their behavior now destructive♫>You glance behind you. You can see Vind getting ready to fire another arrow and further behind him an open area around a small well in the middle of a crossroads. One of the buildings has been built too close to the others, the two two-storey-buildings creating a long and very narrow passage, perhaps enough for two, maybe three people to stand side by side, or one of those monsters to come through.
Poll
15 (42.9%)
Author
Topic: Special People: Mechanical Syndrome (Read 1140967 times)