Session 6, or OMGWTFBBQ CLAWS
When last we left our happyfuntargets, they had found a map room that they hoped could be used to lead them to whatever our hero Jacob Walsis had been doing on the planet Tatooine.
In the map room, the party had seen a lot of apparently random words scrawled on the walls of the cave. After some time, some hints, and some luck, they determined that only one word was repeated on the walls. It was 'unending', written in the alphabets of 5 different alphabets...the same alphabets used in the first part of the journal.
With the key, Ta'vakl and Bindi managed to decrypt the journal faster than their ship's computer was able to work through simulating thousands of years of weathering and figure out where the ridgeline depicted. Apparently Walsis had already figured that part out, and his journal told of his time on Tatooine, mentioning that after many months of work he'd been able to narrow the location down to three ridgelines that were all within a few day's travel. It goes on to detail his examination of each of the locations and records that the second one (the coordinates written out as words) was what he was looking for. He talks about there being traps, and a bad entrance, and DANGER, and that is all that could be decoded.
They retrieved their bantha from the stable and headed off again. They checked some maps and learned that there was a small settlement nearby and figured they could stop in to stay the night. They had pushed the bantha hard, but managed to keep it well fed and treated with a really strong Survival roll, and arrived at the settlement half-a-day faster than anticipated, trotting in just as the suns were going down. The place was lit, but quiet.
Being the paranoid players of PCs, and being extremely wary of smiling DM’s, the party approached the entrance to the closer of the buildings cautiously until the genre savvy gungan ace walked up to the front door and knocked. “HALLLO! ANYBODY HOME?!”
When no one answered, they keyed the door open and peeked inside. There was a little sand at the entrance and some food on the table, but no signs of life in the front room. Attonka and Bindi stepped inside to look around while Ta’vakl stayed near the bantha and Tu’la’loo hung out near the door. That’s when it hit the fan.
Two strange looking robots emerged from the sands right behind the two PC’s remaining outside. They were very skeletal looking, with no outer shells...a lot of exposed hydralics, and odd angular heads. They were a burnished gold/bronze color that was unusual, and the make and model was unknown to anyone in the party. Not that they were concerned with make and model while these nice, cuddly, scary-as-can-be robots were trying to give people hugs.
Somehow, both of the attackers missed with the surprise attacks. Apparently both Tu’la’loo and Ta’vakl dropped a quarter at the same time, but when they stood up and looked, the strange robots, long claws, creepy atmosphere, and overall OMG it’s dark out contributed to shake them both up a bit. There was yelling, screaming, and shooting, and the robots remained basically unscathed. Bindi and Attonka tried to rush outside and help, and neither managed to do anything constructive.
Ta’vakl was left to fend for himself while the other three tried to gang up on Tu’la’loo’s opponent (emphasis on tried), and did the only thing a self-respected pacifist, scared out of his wits in the middle of a fight would do...he climbed up on the sleepy bantha. This woke the poor thing from a nice dream of chewy nomnoms, and the first thing it saw was CLAW-IN-MAH-FACE! and did what any self-respecting plant-eating herd animal would do. It ran.
The fight really would have come to a grisly end if Ta’vakl hadn’t managed to get the beast under control and run it back through the fight, trampling the robots underfoot. hoof. Have to remember those guys. They’re scary.
The party closed and locked the door and rested overnight, keeping a watchful eye out for those monster droids. In the morning, they followed the directions in the journal to Walsis’ back door. They weren’t keen on working through traps.
It’s a good thing that they brought some glowsticks along because the whole place was terribly dark, except for just enough light to make it Creepy+1. They squeezed out of a crack in a finished wall into a hallway with an active restraining field on one side, a small pile of rubble nearby, and barely visible, further down that direction, a cave in that blocked travel in that direction. Oh, and two foot-thick doors made of the same burnished bronze/gold metal, twisted, broken, and resting on the floor. A quiet blue light shone from the hallway that the doors used to block.
With great stealth comes great responsibility. Attonka advanced on the hallway, putting all of her sneaky into one epic roll and peeked around the corner into the room. And promptly failed a fear roll. In the back portion of the room was a Very Large robot, made up of all angles and with a single large glowing eye. Barely visible behind the eye was the drawing depicted in Walsis’ journal.
Attonka backed off, and Ta’vakl and Bindi tried to hack into the containment wall to figure out how to shut it down. They learned something useful in addition to ‘Don’t touch that wire because it sets off an alarm’. They wouldn’t have time to do anything with what they learned, however, because the blue light from the robot’s eye pulsed very bright four times and a group of droids armed with some kind of blaster emerged from the room.
It took no time at all for the creeped out, scared, and already beat up party to open fire. In fact, they actually took out two of the droids before they had a chance to shoot. That didn’t stop them from taking a hit a few seconds later though. Attonka had to fall back under cover and the blaster shots were hot and heavy until the droids fell a minute later. In response the blue light flashed four more times...then four more times after that.
These new droids were not as complete as the first ones. They were actually partially organic in places, with bits of flesh and bone holding bits together. Fortunately they were easier to smash because the party was really feeling the pain by now.
There were no more flashes, so the party snuck up to peek at the Big Bad Evil Robot. It had been diminished...much of the armored plating was gone and it was far more exposed. It seemed to have been using bits of itself to create the droids as well as any extra bits lying around. The party took position on either side of the door and took shots at the robot while it returned fire. Bindi did a particularly acrobatic flip into the middle of the exposed hallway and took a shot to reinforce the notion that she did, in fact, mean to do that (she didn’t), and the robot was, eventually, defeated.
The party was bruised, beaten, shaken, scared, and 75% critted. It was epic. After patching things up, Bindi called the university and said ‘Hey..get off my case. I found something for you at (xxx,xxx). Now give me more money so I can find more.’ With holo scans of the location, they conditionally agreed and now the party is getting ready to set off for Vendaxa, where they believe another clue might be found.
In the map room, the party had seen a lot of apparently random words scrawled on the walls of the cave. After some time, some hints, and some luck, they determined that only one word was repeated on the walls. It was 'unending', written in the alphabets of 5 different alphabets...the same alphabets used in the first part of the journal.
With the key, Ta'vakl and Bindi managed to decrypt the journal faster than their ship's computer was able to work through simulating thousands of years of weathering and figure out where the ridgeline depicted. Apparently Walsis had already figured that part out, and his journal told of his time on Tatooine, mentioning that after many months of work he'd been able to narrow the location down to three ridgelines that were all within a few day's travel. It goes on to detail his examination of each of the locations and records that the second one (the coordinates written out as words) was what he was looking for. He talks about there being traps, and a bad entrance, and DANGER, and that is all that could be decoded.
They retrieved their bantha from the stable and headed off again. They checked some maps and learned that there was a small settlement nearby and figured they could stop in to stay the night. They had pushed the bantha hard, but managed to keep it well fed and treated with a really strong Survival roll, and arrived at the settlement half-a-day faster than anticipated, trotting in just as the suns were going down. The place was lit, but quiet.
Being the paranoid players of PCs, and being extremely wary of smiling DM’s, the party approached the entrance to the closer of the buildings cautiously until the genre savvy gungan ace walked up to the front door and knocked. “HALLLO! ANYBODY HOME?!”
When no one answered, they keyed the door open and peeked inside. There was a little sand at the entrance and some food on the table, but no signs of life in the front room. Attonka and Bindi stepped inside to look around while Ta’vakl stayed near the bantha and Tu’la’loo hung out near the door. That’s when it hit the fan.
Two strange looking robots emerged from the sands right behind the two PC’s remaining outside. They were very skeletal looking, with no outer shells...a lot of exposed hydralics, and odd angular heads. They were a burnished gold/bronze color that was unusual, and the make and model was unknown to anyone in the party. Not that they were concerned with make and model while these nice, cuddly, scary-as-can-be robots were trying to give people hugs.
Somehow, both of the attackers missed with the surprise attacks. Apparently both Tu’la’loo and Ta’vakl dropped a quarter at the same time, but when they stood up and looked, the strange robots, long claws, creepy atmosphere, and overall OMG it’s dark out contributed to shake them both up a bit. There was yelling, screaming, and shooting, and the robots remained basically unscathed. Bindi and Attonka tried to rush outside and help, and neither managed to do anything constructive.
Ta’vakl was left to fend for himself while the other three tried to gang up on Tu’la’loo’s opponent (emphasis on tried), and did the only thing a self-respected pacifist, scared out of his wits in the middle of a fight would do...he climbed up on the sleepy bantha. This woke the poor thing from a nice dream of chewy nomnoms, and the first thing it saw was CLAW-IN-MAH-FACE! and did what any self-respecting plant-eating herd animal would do. It ran.
The fight really would have come to a grisly end if Ta’vakl hadn’t managed to get the beast under control and run it back through the fight, trampling the robots underfoot. hoof. Have to remember those guys. They’re scary.
The party closed and locked the door and rested overnight, keeping a watchful eye out for those monster droids. In the morning, they followed the directions in the journal to Walsis’ back door. They weren’t keen on working through traps.
It’s a good thing that they brought some glowsticks along because the whole place was terribly dark, except for just enough light to make it Creepy+1. They squeezed out of a crack in a finished wall into a hallway with an active restraining field on one side, a small pile of rubble nearby, and barely visible, further down that direction, a cave in that blocked travel in that direction. Oh, and two foot-thick doors made of the same burnished bronze/gold metal, twisted, broken, and resting on the floor. A quiet blue light shone from the hallway that the doors used to block.
With great stealth comes great responsibility. Attonka advanced on the hallway, putting all of her sneaky into one epic roll and peeked around the corner into the room. And promptly failed a fear roll. In the back portion of the room was a Very Large robot, made up of all angles and with a single large glowing eye. Barely visible behind the eye was the drawing depicted in Walsis’ journal.
Attonka backed off, and Ta’vakl and Bindi tried to hack into the containment wall to figure out how to shut it down. They learned something useful in addition to ‘Don’t touch that wire because it sets off an alarm’. They wouldn’t have time to do anything with what they learned, however, because the blue light from the robot’s eye pulsed very bright four times and a group of droids armed with some kind of blaster emerged from the room.
It took no time at all for the creeped out, scared, and already beat up party to open fire. In fact, they actually took out two of the droids before they had a chance to shoot. That didn’t stop them from taking a hit a few seconds later though. Attonka had to fall back under cover and the blaster shots were hot and heavy until the droids fell a minute later. In response the blue light flashed four more times...then four more times after that.
These new droids were not as complete as the first ones. They were actually partially organic in places, with bits of flesh and bone holding bits together. Fortunately they were easier to smash because the party was really feeling the pain by now.
There were no more flashes, so the party snuck up to peek at the Big Bad Evil Robot. It had been diminished...much of the armored plating was gone and it was far more exposed. It seemed to have been using bits of itself to create the droids as well as any extra bits lying around. The party took position on either side of the door and took shots at the robot while it returned fire. Bindi did a particularly acrobatic flip into the middle of the exposed hallway and took a shot to reinforce the notion that she did, in fact, mean to do that (she didn’t), and the robot was, eventually, defeated.
The party was bruised, beaten, shaken, scared, and 75% critted. It was epic. After patching things up, Bindi called the university and said ‘Hey..get off my case. I found something for you at (xxx,xxx). Now give me more money so I can find more.’ With holo scans of the location, they conditionally agreed and now the party is getting ready to set off for Vendaxa, where they believe another clue might be found.