Our heroes, the De Facto Explorers, have returned to their "Pool Room" with their "glow-resistant" suit to clear out some odd objects, and continue their experiments on the Alchemical Laser.
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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.
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 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. He may be pregnant... again!
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Sneaky Pete was giddy. Sonny was using a scoop to lower a small log in to the pool for the Alchemical Laser. The sunflower had notated the settings for the control room, and after a few clicks, the log was still floating atop the pool, but transformed. Sonny carefully lifted it out and it seemed to disintegrate upon touching the table.
Pete scurried over, using his yellow-stained hands test the material, without any other concern.
He didn't say anything, shoving two handfuls into mouth and scooping the rest into the old glass jars held had carefully lugged through the wilderness, just for this one occasion. He gleefully toted his treasures into the back corner of the control room.
Pete's addiction to the yellow powder seemed to grow. Back in Fair-Town, he had broken of one of his jars sending the powder airborne. Dropping a container of some of the of the powder had made him irate. Squiggles tried his best to understand, but most activities only seemed to distract him. His paws, face, and clothing were all stained, and while the spicy, pungent aroma of the powder was originally intriguing to his friends and neighbors, it was now becoming overbearing every time he stayed indoors.
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| Sneaky Pete, Yellow Powder Addict |
Placating the weasel, Sonny pulled out a series of large "farmer's nails." He had already kept copious notes involving their last trip to the Pool House, as well as the defective settings on the Children's Alchemical Laser, and with a few experiments with the nails, they were being transformed into a shiny gold substance, albeit one that seemed to crumble into a more chalk-like substance. Using his "A" and "B" settings as something close to the intended goal, it was working on the "C" "D" and "E" dials where he thought he would need to fine-tune things.
This post-apocalyptic attempt at the scientific method brought surreal results. Some nails needed to be fished out of the pool, others floated to he top. One gold nail floated up from the bottom and floated to the top of the 15-foot ceiling.
Sonny also seemed immune to some of the odd effects these transformed nails exerted onto the others. The sunflower's senses were different that the human/animals. The other felt psychedelic effects from simply staring at the objects. A few of the nails went from raw tools to uncomfortably perfect objects. Sonny put the mentally affecting nails into colored jars, while the floating nails went into clear jars. Even worse, Lathar noted one of the nails was not only floating behind Sonny, but it was following him!
Sonny continued his experiments, producing a gold nail that tracked lifeforms, a nails that seemed to emit a physically impossible amount of amber fluid. Sonny but that one into a bucket he had found on site, and it was slowly filling up.
Squiggles was getting very uncomfortable with the repeated use of the device, and the disconcerting effects of the these transformed nails. He had already been wary of the giant gold bird statue that had mysteriously appeared in the testing chamber, so he slunk into a corner near the exit for the outside world.
Sonny continued with adjusting the settings, sometimes by one mark on the dial.
The nail became shinier, but just stayed at the bottom of the pool. Sonny tried to used the skimming tool to lift it up, without success. Squiggles outright refused to help. Lathar offered to jump in and grab it, but Sonny called it insanely dangerously, but together, even with Pete joining in, they couldn't even budge the nail.
Squiggles was convinced to use his telekinetic powers to attempt to lift it out. He was able to grasp it with his telekinetic hand, but he let go the second a voice manifested inside his mind.
"Kill Me"
Squiggles climbed back into the corner of room, emitting a small yelp.
Pete: "If we can't physically get it out, we can simply change the dials on the machine so we can get it out."
Sonny clicked up on of the dials by 10% and the nail started floating towards the surface, then leaving the water and floating up to the ceiling again.
The experiments continues, one returning back to the chalky gold, another turning into a sticky, gooey gold.... Sonny stared moving up one notch on one dial for one, not about the discern any variations of these "gooey" nails, until he was nearing a previous result and the nail stayed at the bottom of the pool, unable to be moved with the skimmer.
Sonny: "Squiggles, once more, my friend?..."
Squiggles was very reluctant, but stepped forward one more time and raised his hand.
The nail did not budge, but the worm heard another voice in his mind.
WHY WON'T YOU LET ME DIE???
Squiggles: "It's talking to me!!!!"
Sonny: "What is?"
Squiggles: "The nail!"
Sonny: "What's it saying?"
Squiggles: "It's saying it want's to die!"
Sonny: "Can you communicate with it?"
Squiggles: "F--- that! That's not my department. I'm getting the hell out of here!"
Squiggles had enough and exited the facility, and sitting on the ground next to No-Name and the wagon.
Pete, covered with his yellow powder, was recruited to speak to the nail, but couldn't talk to it... but the nail was certainly yelling at him.
YOU IDIOTS NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE BEFORE YOUR DOOM US ALL. JUST LEAVE ME HERE TO DIE!
Pete relayed the message to the others...
Sonny: "Fascinating... can you see if the other nails can talk?"
Pete girded his psychic loins... discovering six more nails that appeared sentient, with the same demands. The weasel still twitches back from the group of nails demanded to be murdered, his denial that all of this was real the only thing that kept him from losing his mind.
Sonny went back to the drawing board, adjusting one more setting and trying to remove the sentience from the nail in the tank.
There was initially no noticeable effect on the nail. Sonny and Pete neared the tanking, cautiously grabbing the skimmer while the weasel detected the mind of the nail.
It was quiet.
Sonny noticed the bucket with the nail had tipped over somehow, amber liquid pouring across the floor. It was Sonny that noticed the jars on the experiment table began moving, skidding across the table, falling to the ground, shattering. The nails appeared to move towards the pool, the glass shard sliding as well, but not as fast.
Sonny's medallion around his neck was now horizontal pointing towards the nail..
There was an odd metallic thud hitting the tiled floor. The guys looked to Lathar, who was holding a ring that had been attached to his belt.
"Guys? Something's missing."
A grenade, which had never been identified, was rolling towards the alchemical pool.....
GM Notes: The other title we pulled for this session was "Monkeys Playing With Artillery"
Also "There's always one asshole in the party with a grenade."
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