Our heroes, the De Facto Explorers, are at the KIA Academy. They are looking for some money making opportunities to keep the Academy's roof over their heads for the winter.
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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.
Sonny Helianthus: a sentient sunflower artifact examiner with trusted Restorationist ties. Knowledgeable, but not a good one with device repairs or upgrades. Very interested in a "Children's Alchemical Laser" he recently acquired.
Slitheran Wurmtail (aka Squiggles): a mutated earthworm scout, in impromptu power armor, looking for trouble, and finding it often. Previously "gave birth" to a litter of sentient earthworm babies, but recently has been subject to genetic testing and developed super-human strength, a more human body, and a thick coat of shaggy white hair.
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. No Name has recently been fitted for a artillery device of the Ancients that chucks spears further than any human. Looking for trouble in all the right places. Former jousting champion of Fair-Town and has been awarded... a peacock he has named Chambray. He's recently been struck by a weapon by a strange race of people and transformed into... something else.
RHA-9: A lab assistant piece of "Living Metal" that seems to have befriended the group... for now! Currently getting repairs done by the Restorationists.
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With a rough map to navigate down to Sub-Level 7, and a trip to resupply (albeit no medical supplies), the group marched down to the sub-levels yet again. With a look in their eyes like they were ready for anything, they certainly stood out like a sore thumb as they brazenly marched down the streets and alleyways of Sub-Levels 1 and 2.
The path detailed for Sub-Levels 3 and 4 were hard to deviate from. Someone had blocked passageways and weld items together to keep the denizens away... or the travelers away from the denizens.
Sub-Level 5 saw the first of "life" down below. Dirty and disheveled hallways, random contents, largely unidentifiable... until they got to a side passage that had once been storage, with huge metal racks, and mostly empty containers littering everywhere.
- Pete laid claim to a silver pistol of the ancients that did NOT look like an energy weapon
- Squiggles grabbed a silver globe with buttons
- Lathar picked up a clear cube (9" x 9")
- Sonny was amused with an oversized drinking mug with buttons on it.
Following the map that O'Pinnery gave them, they worked their way to a large room, with a further passage, but a side door they needed to go through. Everyone was entranced by a pair of blue lights over the passageway, so much so that Pete wanted to investigate the entire room. He didn't even get across the room when he found an odd anomaly in the center of the room. Despite a level floor, Pete was sliding towards the center. He was able escape the pull, but as everyone look around, the saw five figures in the darkness of the passageway beyond the blue lights. Sonny waved to them, and one figure resembling a tree waved back. As Lathar attempted to approach them, the entire group slowly turned their backs on him and walked away.
Going through the door, they descended some steps and a hallway. The closed doors on this level had an odd concept. Instead of a keypad like they were used to in these ancient complexes the wall near the door had an 9"x 9" cube carved out. There were no obvious sensors or electronics inside the space.
Some doors were open, particularly one with a large bed and a number of silver footlockers containing parts for Living Metal! The footlockers were much to bulky and heavy to carry around during their mission, but mental notes were made to figure out a way of transporting them. Sonny did take a Living Metal head with blank face, just in case they couldn't come back.
They continued down more hallways, finding more doors with the square space next to them. Pete tried to use a crowbar and his telepathy (?) to open these to no avail. Lathar was even convinced just to stick his hand into the square in the wall, to no effect. Coming upon a familiar looking set of double doors that they couldn't open, Sonny suggested Squiggles use with telekinesis, not telepathy to open the double doors... and it succeeded!
The doors opened up to an elevator lift, destinations unknown.
Then what little power and lighting on the level went out. Extra light sources were created and everyone decided Squiggles would need to use his undisclosed powers on the previous doors. The worked all the way back to the first door near the pried opens doors and staircase.
That door opened to reveal a host of large devices, plus some sort of cart with a dome on it. As the other three explored the room, Peter wisely popped his head out into the hallway.
A group of four humanoid rabbits wielding spears forced their way through the pried open door and walked down the stairs.
"Halt!" Pete yelled.
The rabbits did not stop. Pete fired his weapon once and nearly vaporized one of the rabbits. The rabbits in turn charged.
While the other three scurried to find a fighting position, everyone was struck down for a moment, like something had sucked the life out of them. Given that unusual event, it seemed a little less strange that the larger rabbit took two massive hits from the group's weapons of Ancients and barely flinched. Lathar fired a second shot at the supposed leader, and the shot ricocheted back and hit him for massive damage. With multiple shots and ricochets, one rabbit dashed away, and the much tougher one fled a few moments later.
Sonny suggested they finish the mission before going on any more side quests and the rest agreed.
Moving through the darkened stairs and hallways, they came upon a large room with a number of single chairs next to small tables with cabinets on top of them. Halfway through the room, the power to the complex came on again, and the cabinets came to life with a series of beeps and squeals. Each cabinet had some sort of viewscreen showing various animations, crabs chasing birds, monsters destroying the towers of the ancients.
Sonny touched the screen to the building smashing and realized it was some sort of game. When he finally lost, a small square, wrapped in pink paper dropped from a dispenser in the cabinet. After much analyzing, it was determined to be edible, hard, and sweet....
Sonny wanted to play some more, but the rest wanted to descended the stairs in front of them into Sub-Level 6
GM Notes: There is a significant difference between telekinesis and telepathy. You can't tell an inanimate door to open.
I also can only tell a group so many times to check their character sheets to see if they have a cube that may fit the space next to all the locked doors.
Next: #60 - Sub-Level 7
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