John's eyes go a bit distant for a moment. "A final request. Huh... yeah, I might think about that. Buh, uh, yeah. I don't know; some pretty crazy stuff has already happened in my time; I'm not sure how much more crazy I could make it. I'd have time to lay low, and time's certainly on my side." John waved. "Thanks buddy!"
John walked back after the drone. "Come here, you."
Catch the drone and sense it. Get detailed information on it.
You go to the drone. It obeys your command and moves closer to you. Or maybe it's just curious, because it starts scanning you. But you just snatch it out of the air. It revs its rotors a couple of times, tugging your hand like an excited dog tugging its leash, but it eventually settles down. Its sensor keeps looking around nervously.
From the looks of it, the drone is nothing special. A long lasting battery, a couple of rotors at its core that can move at different speeds, positioned on tiny actuators so that they can tilt to different directions independent from one another, a lightweight shell probably made out of some plastic, a small array of processors, a speaker and a microphone, some more plastic to keep it all together and some wires and optic fibers to connect everything. The only thing that makes this something more than a high quality drone is its "eye", since it actually has a good deal of sensors and emitters crammed in there. You're not sure what exactly goes on in its processor but it's certainly getting a lot of data to process.
Kosak Durar, Emergency Briefing:
"Eh? What's this?"
Kosak eyes the drone suspiciously. If it gets too close to him, it's probably going to get crushed.
You and The Captain stand with your arms crossed, eyeing the drone suspiciously as it approaches. The drone is snatched by John before it can get too close.
"I bet it just wants to mess up my lawn. Damn drones."You keep a close eye on it, just in case.
Smack him with the glass orbs on the anchors and keep firing. Or retract and redeploy anchors to try to ensnare him and keep firing. Keep charging. Hope for a useful RME.
He lowers his stance, getting ready to pounce. You bring down your anchors for an overhead smash but he jumps out of the way. The moment the glass orbs slam against the ground they shatter, releasing the psychic scream trapped inside. The blast of psychic energy is apparently enough to through him off balance, causing him to fumble his jump. He lands behind you, slamming on his side and tumbling, making a few rolls before he disappears in a cloud of steam. The psychic blast also affects you but it's nothing you can't handle. This isn't the first time you've had your mind assaulted.
You immediately start firing a barrage of energy bolts into the cloud, not willing to give him a chance to recover. He is not deterred. A few seconds later he is half-running half-sliding towards you and slightly to your left, dragging the red-hot tips of his wings against the snow and raising a big cloud of steam in the process. You try to hit him as he passes by you but your aim is way off. For a few moments until the steam clears you have no clear sight of him. You try a blind strike but you don't hear it hitting anything.
What you
do hear through the howling wind is a single thumping of wings, realizing too late that he has jumped and is gliding above ground somewhere. You spot him a moment later, a red-grey blur in the snowstorm, rearing like a flying horse, showing you his glowing underbelly.
While all this was going on, a bunch of weirdly-shaped, shiny and vaguely conical devices appeared on the bottom of your core, filled with a fizzing liquid. They're bulging outwards as if at any moment they'll burst open.
Alan rolls over in the water to look up at his new unfortunate victim acquaintance, assuming they've come to look at him."That's not how you do running hugs, you know, but hey, practice makes perfect. I'm Alan, who are you?"
Strike up conversation!
You hear the woman pick up her lantern and get back on her feet with a few curses. She approaches the point you fell and holds her lantern up, trying to get a better look at you, allowing you to get a better look at her in the process. It's a middle-aged woman wearing a low quality wool coat with a bit of fur to keep the neck more warm. She finds you lazily lying on your back, floating on top of the water and a bunch of bent plants.
"That's not how you do running hugs, you know, but hey, practice makes perfect. I'm Alan, who are you?""I'm- Who- WHY are you here? What are you doing here? Why did you run towards me? Why are you just lying there?" she asks, raising her hands as if she's trying to keep herself from shaking the answers out of you.
"Well aren't you just the most delightfully conspicuous thing. Lead on!"
Shady offers go! Keep an ear out for trouble, and my hands on my valuables.
The man leads you to a secluded location and, after making sure nobody followed you, cuts to the chase. He says there's an object that really interests him inside the temple. While reaching it normally would be quite hard, it should be quite easy to reach for a man with your skills. There is a waterfall inside the temple, just beyond the entrance. If you climb through it, you'll be able to reach the room it is in bypassing all physical and most magical defences. You don't have to worry about those, he will give you a hex that will temporarily disable any magical defences left.
The object he's looking for is a golden staff with a rather sizable hemi-spherical blue glass orb on its top. All you have to do is get in, activate the hex, grab the staff and get it to him. He says he'll pay you enough money to make you rich and you can keep any other valuables you find in there as long as he gets the staff.
He says he heard that you have a meeting with the Headwater in the morning, so you could try doing it then. Or you could wait until it's night and he could cause some sort of distraction he's been planning to help you get in, although he doesn't mention the specifics. Or you could do something else, he doesn't care that much about how you do it. Whatever approach you decide to take however, he must have the staff by tomorrow morning.
Check if I'm waking up back in my bunker, from a very strange and very long dream?
You try to raise your head and look around but the sun burns your eyes, you lose your balance and you fall off the bed. You stay on the floor for a few seconds. You attempt to moan in pain but your throat is dry and all you manage to do is cough, which only makes your dizziness worse.
You cover your eyes and try to look at the room through your fingers. It's quite small, something like 2x2 meters, just enough to hold a bunk bed, a tiny table and a chair (which you thankfully missed while falling). There's a few personal belongings around that you can see from the ground. There's a bag under the bed. You recognize your clothes squeezed between the bed and a wall. There's some more clothes on the chair.
Overall, not the worst place you could have woken up in. You're not missing any kidneys and you are not behind bars. Unless you did something stupid that you're really going to regret, this will probably turn out fine. Well, something you're going to regret more than drinking all that... whatever that was. You're not really sure. Most of your recent history is all a hazy blur. You remember going into a bar, some shouting, some dancing... No, you can't remember anything concrete. It's just a few disconnected images and feelings.
Ima jus restin har.
I don't know why but I read that in a stereotypical Jamaican accent.
Although you're probably more at
this state right about now.
"We can help!"
Theri lifted Irine as she stood up, carrying her on her back with both arms casually holding her.
"And by that, I didn't mean anything bad. Like 'make more people disappear'; hello, my name is Theri. We found San in a village a ways back there, he was wounded, we helped save the village from shadow creatures--him being wounded and found was after the village got-..."
Issue a tactful and polite dialogue with the nice folks, obviously not interrupting and speaking as the dialogue flows naturally.
Also say that it's okay for them to keep their knives out if they feel afraid, and before I get ahead of myself in being too friendly, inquire about them and their origins. Any areas nearby, etc. As an aside if or what they know about the monastery.
Maybe end with a 'could I ask how you're related to San?'.
They say they are traveling west from the village of Traveller's Rest to try to reach someplace that was safer. Hearing you talk about all the bad things happening in the west makes them a bit more desperate. You try to reassure them that things are better now, but they aren't convinced.
They say they secretly sneaked out of their village and have been on the road ever since. They say they've been traveling for a few days now and haven't encountered anything beyond a few wild animals. There was that one time where they hid from a group of strangers they saw wandering around close to the road, just to be on the safe side. They didn't look dangerous, just weird, just slowly walking around with no apparent purpose. The worst thing that has happened to them so far was when some animal stole some of their food when they made a brief stop to rest this morning.
They say the monastery doesn't sound like a great place to be in. People living there are practically slaves, working all day for a bit of food and no coin. Still, it might be the safest place to be at the moment. The monks were always good at keeping those who wished people harm away. They might head there if things really are that bad in Road's End. Or maybe they'll just head south.
The man says he's not actually related to San, he merely saw the boy while San was traveling through his village. San had become separated from the group he was traveling with and the man helped the boy find them and rejoin them.
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Topic: Special People: Mechanical Syndrome (Read 1128873 times)