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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Our heroes exited the secret facility of the Ancients, a bit worse for wear for some. The sight of sunshine and fresh air were a welcome sight, although their return was quick unexpected by the nearby Hissers.
"We're good? It's fixed already? Wow!" one of the Hisser remarked telepathically.
"Absolutely not," Sonny quickly retorted. "We need to regroup. Do you have any healers in town?"
"Follow me..."
Lathar had a particular greyish tone to his skin.
"Hey Squiggles," Sonny leaned over to his earthworm friend, "Humans don't change colors if we keep them out of sunlight, do they?"
"They certainly do not!"
"Then I hope they can help Grey-thar..."
They came to the healers hut and the two went through a series of homeopathic remedies and procedures without much success.
"It appears we'll need to transfer healthy blood into you." Small knives came out and the Hissers cut their arms, along with Lathar and Pete's, and put them together.
While they wait for the ritual to end, Pete gave them a positive outcome of their search, despite their mysterious ailments and injuries.
Pete was the only one who noticed the Hisser helping Lathar was quickly turning grey, it disconnected from the transfusion and emitted a eerie, wailing noise before dropping dead. This caused quite a commotion and confusion among the assistants. Looking over, Lathar was energized, but still slightly grey. Pete's healer shuffled over, but maintained contact for that transfusion. He was not turning grey, but Pete didn't share that symptom.
Immediately the elders called another meeting with our heroes. Accusations and questions and fear dominated the meeting. Sonny did his best to allay any fears, but the sudden unknown death of a healer was far more worrisome than items falling from the sky.
The Elders ordered them outside the walls in tents, with supplies. There were not to make additional contact, except with better news.
Lathar asked for additional troops to help the, which excited the ire of elders even more.
"We barely have enough to guard the village, protect from raiders, and keep the peace. If we could do it ourselves, we would not have begged for help like some worthless primitives."
Those same guards escorted the heroes outside the walls, until they were ready to re-enter the complex.
After setting up the tents and eating, our heroes decided to experiment with the artifacts they recovered from the complex.
They wandered closer to the stream they had followed up from the Hisser River. Upon finding a clearing, they made a makeshift table with some fallen trees and a stump and began analyzing their finds.
With Lathar over his shoulder, Sonny couldn't venture much from the artifact knife they had recovered.
Lathar took the knife from the sunflower, insistent that a knife was more than just a knife. He walked away, fumbling about with the item. At some point, he dropped the knife. The blade fell out of the hilt and what looked to be a power cell rolled onto the grass as well. He quickly put all the parts together without earning the suspicion of his teammates, but as he reinserted the blade, he heard a a resounding *THWANG* and the blade fell completely into to hilt.
He walked back over and handed it to Sonny, "It's more than just a knife."
Realizing the pieces were lose and catching the blade with his fronds as it fell out ("That was a poor idea!") Sonny walked away. Upon further inspection, the hilt had dozen of tiny screws, although there was no explanation what exactly they were holding together on the hilt.
"I'll need some time back in my lab in River Bend to investigate this further." and Sonny tucked it away in his pack.
Turning to the oversized pistol, Sonny realized to device was complete to function, although it appeared to be missing pieces which might have been accessories, or simply cosmetic.
Plugging the power cell in, the weapon hummed for a moment and went silent. After messing with the weapon, small lights came on. Whatever the missing cosmetic items were apparently explained what the yellow and green buttons did, and he picked the wrong time to pull the trigger.
A burst of light shot out of the barrel and hit a large boulder 100 foot away. The boulder split open, behind it the smoking body of Squiggles.
"SQUIGGLES! My oldest friend!" Everyone ran over to the earthworm.
Squiggles was alive although the deflected blast of the weapon hit him square in the face.
Sonny flipped the small switch he realized was a safety or power switch. "He'll live, although I don't think the healer will want to talk to him after today."
Squiggles laughed, got to his feet, and slugged the sunflower. He fell backwards and was caught by Lathar, who lifted them up in his arms.
"Please, Lathar.... Don't drop me."
Realizing their best course of action was to go back to camp and rest up, they cleaned up their site, but Pete caught something out of the corner. Up in the sky were five streaking objects, heading toward the large mesa... and the Hisser village.
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| A Problem, Times Five |
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