The De Facto Explorers have found a tribe of Hoppers, right next to an underground facility in the Glow Zone wilderness across the Big River. They've entered an area that was once a mine. An area populated by hostile bestial primitives.
===============================================================
Lathar Bracken: A pure-strain human from River Bend. He's got the muscle, the face, and a mount for most encounters. Lathar's trusty beast of burden, No Name, travels wherever he does. Looking for trouble in all the right places. The two-time champion of the Fair-Town Queen's Joust. Recently married Thunnelda Haycock.
Sneaky Pete: A mutated weasel scout. Pete's telepathy and night vision take a backseat when he whips out his electrical powers. Apparently addicted to his newly uncovered yellow powder found at "The Pool House"
Sonny Helianthus: a nearly 10' tall sentient sunflower artifact examiner with four arms, and trusted Restorationist ties. Knowledgeable, but not a good one with device repairs or upgrades.
Slitheran Wurmtail (aka Squiggles): a mutated earthworm scout, in impromptu power armor, looking for trouble in all the wrong places, and finding it often. He has been subject to genetic testing and developed super-human strength, a more human body, and a thick coat of shaggy white hair. Recently gave birth to a pile of baby worms.
Luna of the Restorationists: Recent recruit of the Restorationists, who had uncovered artifacts across the River.
================================================================
The Children's Alchemical Laser had worked... like it always did.
Sonny Helianthus, mutant sunflower, had meant to liquify the giant leader of the mine troglodytes. Instead the machine had a mind of its own and transformed it into some cylindrical monstrosity encased in the Ancient's plas-tek. It bit the sunflower with terrifyingly straight and white teeth, and swung at him with his new white bulbous hands, but the attacks were ineffective, the leader not knowing his new body.
Meanwhile, the other simply couldn't finish off the initial prong of the counterattack. Energy cells depleting, melee weapons just not causing enough damage, the cuts and scratches from the trogs' claw were simply accumulating.
Sonny and Luna were getting overwhelmed, but Sonny held only the limited commitment to his fellow Restorationist and teleported away from combat....
... far enough that he could pull out his blaster and miss wide right were the giant, grinning cylinder's shoulder would be.
The was enough for the leader, who looked back, astounded to the feat the sunflower just performed, and ran away with the trog fighting Luna.... running right out the main doors for the mine and into the facility... or worse yet, the Hoppers' lair.
Once the other trogs were dispatched, they let Lathar lead the group backtracking through the facility. There was little sign of the odd duo in the rooms, so they went under the stairs and through the portal back into the Hoppers' lair. A single Hopper guard was napping near the entrance, with no trace of an intrusion. Going back into the facility, Pete noticed the odd shaped footprints of the leader going up the stairs.
The stairwell went up to a small room, which emptied out into a vast manufacturing room, Multiple conveyor belts lined the room, with a host of deactivated living metal alongside it. The ceiling stood 50 foot tall with gangway and windows to other levels visible.
At one point, this place was manufacturing.... energy cells.
The ones most interested in the tech were distracted by the missing agents of chaos. Pete had follow the disturbances in the dust to a metal open stairwell, and the open grate third story gangway which wrapped around half the room before disappearing into the rooms and windows above. There was a second metal stairway that looked like it led to the space behind the glass and walls on the second story.
Next: #108 - Lair of the Spider Man
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
