Roll 67
Amatin stepped over to Cherenkov, whose stomach was being expelled through holes in his skin and oozing out onto the floor. Chrerenkov didn't scream, though. It appeared as if his soul had just given up on fighting Amatin, and resigned itself to its last moments waiting for death to free it.
Amatin gave Cherenkov the order to take out his radio and say something. Cherenkov complied and, with his last breath, whispered into the Dolphin channel:
"Wizards... in the reactor... appeared out of nowhere... stop them..."
He sputtered and then died on the floor.
Amatin turned around to face the others. Without looking back, he declared:
"We're going to head down to whatever they're digging to. Specifically, there is, apparently, a modular lift leading down into the drill pit. I've "sabotaged" the drill so we should expect them to be near the motor housing or, with Cherenkov's last order, near the reactor, i.e not near the lift. Once they figure out it was a ploy, they'll be looking for us, so our goal is to make our way to the downward lift (D1 on the map) before they find us..."
[6] Amatin had been looking through Cherenkov's files and emails before he left. He found out that the drill had actually reached the target a few minutes ago, and that now the company was preparing to engage the drill slowly to avoid damaging the structure.
He soul blasted the other merc before the merc could get up.
Then, his communicator made a beeping sound. He grabbed it and unmuted it.
"Attention, this is Van Buren, I have an order for all off-shift personnel. Lambda team is to escort Alpha and Beta to the reactor room where you can warm up your fusion cores. After mobilizing, be ready for further instruction."
Crap.
Varron, satisfied with the current explanation of events, proceeded forward and opened the door for Zakroff's drone.
Milia did not talk about what she saw, and instead continued into the dark hallway. The drone's hydraulics made noises which echoed as it moved into the hallways.
"So how exactly do you intend to get the drone up a flight of stairs?" Varron asked Zakroff.
"Good question," he said in response.
"That's where you come in."
Bloody Centauri.
As Zakroff laughed and Varron rolled his eyes, a sudden click alerted both of their senses. They looked around, but it was too dark to make anything out. Then, [1] a series of bright white flashes and capacitor hisses later, Zakroff was stunned, having taken 32 (CRITICAL!) (Criticals double the total damage dealt. Ambushing gives an automatic critical) damage to the back. His silver suit deflected much of the damage, whatever it came from, but it still went through and started to heat up the plates on his trenchcoat underneath. He jumped up and about as he tore off his suit and attempted to reach for the boiling armor, but it happened to be located right in the center of his back where he couldn't reach it.
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"Six hostiles up ahead. 1 large one, 5 small ones. I suggest we sneak up and observe the situation before making a decision..." said Kayle
"Anyone?"
"I agree. Might be someone to help...might be something to walk away from.
And keep your heads down. We don't know who that sniper was aiming for." Jaffar said in response.
Caplus and Aduin nodded and followed behind the other two as they went straight forward, slowing down just at the edge of a small open pocket of air. It wasn't a clearing--in fact, jagged bladeleaf stumps were scattered around the opening, and small palm-sized carnivorous insect traps poked out of the dense underbrush in this part of the forest.
Kayle and Jaffar rushed behind a rock. Jaffar watched his minimap for sounds and reached under his helmet's chin for Dial 1, which he had assigned to the dialogue amplifier feature. [1] He heard faint mumbling, which occasionally formed a single phoneme as his suit picked up the syllables.
Kayle then reported that the five smaller figures were running in the opposite direction. The two peered over the rock to observe five men in matte black medium armor with red and gold highlights. All but one of them had a long-barreled rifle with a bulky rectangular scope mounted to the rail. The last one had a needle rifle of Centauri design, and was firing at a large monster as the other four retreated to gain distance bonuses.
The large monster was peculiar. It looked like something on Iesac, but it was likely one of the rarer species, because the group had never seen nor been informed of anything like it. It was a fleshy beast with a chitinous shell, rounded over its back, segmented and curving as it reached the end of the creature's tail, where the tail split into two separate limbs, each with a pair of barbed pincers on the end. The monster walked on four spindly, multi-jointed legs with eight claws on each foot. Its underside was bare and fleshy, and it was marked with bleeding wounds from the unknown soldier's covering fire. But the animal itself didn't seem to take notice of its wounds, and instead focused on snatching at the soldier with its two bladed arms, attempting to slide its arms over the other in order to cleanly sever limbs should it get within reach. But the soldier, either incredibly fast or assisted by armor, ran faster than the critter, and continued to fire at its belly as it shook its armored head and roared.