Our heroes, the De Facto Explorers, assisting the Hissers of Notex with the sky falling....
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Sneaky Pete: A mutated weasel scout. Pete's telepathy and night vision take a backseat when he whips out his electrical powers. Recovering from his injuries from the Glow near Ulmin.
Sonny Helianthus: a sentient sunflower artifact examiner with trusted Restorationist ties.
Slitheran Wurmtail (aka Squiggles): a mutated earthworm scout, in impromptu power armor, looking for trouble, and finding it often. Recently "gave birth" to a litter of sentient earthworm babies.
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. Recent jousting champion of Fair-Town and has been awarded... a peacock he has named Chambray.
Ramsay Kallax: Mutated Ram from the far-off KIA Academy with a predilection for ancient treasures... and the occasional head-butt.
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The De Facto Explorers had crested a ridge and finally got a good view of the strange object of the Ancients off in the distance.
Hoping they were nearing the Hisser village of Notex, they worked there way towards the structure. As they approached, they realized this odd structure was atop an mesa over sixty foot above the the rest of the terrain.
The group took numerous breaks to use their spyglasses and binoculars to spy any activity on the structure. Nothing look amiss, other than the quite square base holding onto the structure. The cliffs below it seemed sheer, with a few masses of vines in random places. No stairs or trails were noticeable, but viewing further down caught a number of concrete towers enclosed with a fence.
Constant and closer review disclosed a number of buildings inside the wooden walls, as well as large gardens, and a large collection of tents. The vague figures moving around were made out to be hissers. Sneaky Pete spied through his binoculars one final approach. He detected figures in the the tower that were definitely snake-like, and as he panned across the field of vision, catching a hisser staring at him through their own set of binoculars. Pete waved. The hisser followed suit.
The group advanced forward, weapons slung, save Lathar, who mounted No-Name and readied his lance. The wall ahead of them was only three meters high, and over 120 meters across. Four large concrete towers loomed large in the corners of the facility, but two smaller ones flanked the actual gate.
A single voice shouted out, "That's far enough."
Sneaky Peter froze in his tracks. The rest of the group continued moving. Realizing that somehow someone was speaking to him telepathically, he shot back a response, 'Alright, we'll stop, but we were asked to come here for help. We mean you no harm.'
'Alrighty then, we got through to only one of you. Meet us at the front gate.'
Pete informed the others of his "personal" conversation and they proceeded to the gate. Within 30 meters, the towers appeared to have turrets on them, and hissers holding rifles of the ancients. The wooden fence also appeared to be a facade of the true defenses, a 2-meter metal wall behind the wooden one. The top of the metal wall was adorned with twisted masses of razor wire.
Upon reaching the door, Pete moved forward ahead of the group and the gate opened, "Hey, guys who sent us?"
"Justinian!"
"Justinian from the Explor... Hey guys what group he was with?"
"The Restorationists"
"Yeah, right.... 'Justinian from the Restorationists sent to us to help you with your problem of the sky falling.'
The same hisser responded telepathically, 'Excellent, we've been waiting for you, put your hands down and come in.'
The gate opened further and the Explorers ented, they were greeted by an older hisser with an eyepatch.
'I am Gorel, come inside and let us do our formalities. Not all the Restorationists are as trustworthy as Justinian.'
'Before we conduct business, we must discover the true intentions of everyone here, Pete. We will need the others to open up your minds, unless you are their official translator.'
Pete spoke of the proper etiquette, and convinced the others to be less resistant to the Hissers only form of communication.
Gorel motioned to another hisser, who carried a glass jar full of flat pieces of wood, with curved ends.
'These are our serum sticks. We need you to put them into your orifices.'
Everyone placed one stick in the their mouths, and after a few moments, Gorel asked them to remove them.
Ramsay's was colored green.
Sonny's was an odd flourescent yellow-green.
Squiggles; was solid yellow.
Lathar's was solid yellow.
Pete's was solid yellow.
Gorel examined them, 'This is sufficient. Follow me.'
The hisser led them down the main lane in the village. Spying down a row of smaller buildings, the could definitely see a destroyed house, and a garden area with a large crater destroying over half of the plot. He finally led them to a large L-shaped two-story wooden building the center of the fenced in area. Inside were Gorel and two other older hissers behind a table.
After Gorel spoke 'This is Pete and his friends from Justinian. They have come to solid our problem with the falling sky.' He introduced the other Hissers as Herka and Joveena.
Joveena connected with the party, 'You may have noticed the recent devastation the wrecked our village. The sky is falling, and it's destruction is getting closer to our villagers, no matter what we do. If we're lucky the sky is striking the great cliff. If we're luckier, they are landing on the far side of the cliff. Luckily this phenomenon has only hurt two villagers thus far.
Sonny requested to examine what was falling from the sky, and the elders concurred.
Lathar somehow picked up a telepathic whisper between Herka and Joveena. 'Tell them about the dish that does not serve...'
'Where's the dish?"
'It's the object atop the cliffs. It's usually been a beacon for our weary travelers returning home. portions of it have begun to move within the past few weeks.'
Lathar spoke out loud, "So do we want to get to this dish, or search around?"
Sonny reverted back to old ways, "I really want to see what's landing in the village."
Gorel led them on a short tour of the town. In the wreckage of a destroyed building, there was a lumpy, metal orb withing the wooden shards. One side of the orb had significant signs of of melting.
'Most of the items fallen from the sky are hitting the cliff face and bouncing off, or are just outside the walls. It's only a matter of time before someone's in the garden or a building when it's hit.
All eyes turned to Sonny, looking for an explanation, but the sunflower was just as perplexed as everyone else. He stared up at the dish and didn't see any obvious pieces missing off of it, and worst yet, he had nary a clue what the wreckage originally was!
They spent an hour trying to figure out a path or method to scale the cliff, Nothing seemed probable, and the Hissers never pondered how to get up there. Perhaps none of them ever experienced the flying mutation?
Next they investigated the crystal-clear, pure water source, emerging from the base of the cliff. There was no obvious source filling the basin, although the overflow would trickle along the cliff base, under the wall. The run-off then pooled in another location downhill, until that run-off led to the stream in the valley.
Finally, they toured around the cliff/mesa. The other side of it had an assortment of melted wrecked impacted. Returning back to the village, the party continued to ponder diving into the basin and finding it's water source. Sonny worked over the cliff, still as sheer as ever. Then he saw one of the rock sections jutting out 3-4 inches then making a 90 degree turn to the right. Following across, he met another right angle, and then going down, was an odd control panel to the right of it. A very dull glow in some of the buttons was barely detectable.
"Guys!!!!!!"
GM Notes: Everyone failed their search rolls, except for Sonny, who rolled a "1".
We spent the last 25 minutes of the session discussing that Squiggles could swim into the basin. "A swimming worm won't last too long." Even if they attached a line to him, or use some of the mystery metal for a sturdier support. I believe Mike suggested we simply impale the worm on the metal, "Just in case."
Next: #26 - The Room of Pain
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