Kay’s Journal, 3/5
<The first page is singed and burnt to unreadability. Apparently,
there was an accident at the campfire. The narrative picks up mid-entry on the
next page.>
…the snow helped. Abran went looking for tracks that we
could follow, and found a trail left by a wolf. We followed that, found some
bear tracks and also some blood. I saw a spot where the snow was disturbed and
it looked like some bones might be piled. There, we find the body of an adult
male with a very strange looking wound to his head. It didn’t look like a
normal weapon. Maybe some kind of very powerful ballista?
Abran and Fathom look around for whatever hit him, and Fathom
ends up climbing some rocks to get a better idea where the attack might have
come from. I see an armored guy in the distance, raising his arm in Fathom’s
direction. I tell her to drop.
Corncob shouts to the armored figure to hold up. He gets its
attention. Corncob and Abran move toward it, while I move behind one of the
rocks for cover.
The figure says something in an unrecognizable language, and
something shoots from his hand toward Corncob. I guess the figure is not
holding up. Pujol tries casting a spell to communicate with it, but no dice
there, either. The figure doesn’t respond; it’s like the spell couldn’t connect
with it. Corncob moves closer still and tries to tell it that we could best it
in combat, but that’s not our fist choice.
Abran moves in closer as well, and shoots at the figure. He
damages it, but the figure doesn’t bleed, nor does it react like there’s a
person in that armor. He does see strange, multi-colored ligaments and tendons
in the arm. Looks like it’s some kind of golem or construct. Great…more golems.
We keep fighting. Gooseneck gets hit with its weapon, then
rages and hits it with his lighting aura, which seems to be particularly
effective against this golem. It falls.
Gooseneck searches the remains. It’s all metal and those
weird colored fibers inside. We’re still thinking golem, but Fathom doesn’t
sense any magic. Weird. Corncob looks at its feet so he’ll be able to recognize
the tracks it left. It does look like there’s some precious metals in there, so
we take those. Pujol takes a close look at the weapon arm, and sees some gears
and levers in there, as well as some small metal projectiles.
Abran and Corncob look for tracks, and find some leading
toward where the light in the sky hit ground. We follow the golem’s tracks to
an area where a number of trees were knocked down around a large furrow dug
into the earth. We circle the area, looking for tracks or anything else to be
concerned about before we go in. Corncob notices the dirt that’s been dug up
must have been hit very hard, and whatever hit it must have been very hot as
the furrow is scorched.
Abran sees some child-sized footprints heading into what
looks like a round metal door going into the ground. The door is sealed, but
there’s a latch that can be used to open it. Pujol tries using a spell to move
the latch, but that doesn’t work. He tries it himself, and that does. We find a
rope hanging down into the interior of the..cave?...that the child probably
used to climb down.
Corncob spikes the hatch open, and notices large scratch
marks on the metal, like something was dragged in.
The floor is metal, like armor. We see a glowing rune on one
wall, and hear a voice speaking. At first the language it speaks is
unrecognizable, but over the next minute or two we all start hearing it in our
native language.
This place is weird.
The voice says “Implant not detected, delivering nanites’,
and then a spray of some kind shoots out of the wall near where Fathom is
inspecting the glowing runes. Looovely.
Fathom knocks on the wall and asks where the child is. A map
shows up on one of the walls, like some kind of illusion magic. We won’t be
able to take the map with us, but apparently, we can get it to show up on other
walls. From the map, it looks like some areas of this weird metal cave are
damaged. We head out for one of the undamaged looking rooms.
We move up to the room, and Fathom has the wall bring up the
map again. Abran opens the door to the room and tries stealthing in, but the
lights all pop on as soon as he enters. The room is mostly empty, but there are
a few things of interest. Abran goes over to a work bench and finds some mini
blacksmithing tools. Fathom takes them. Fathom asks the wall where the bear is,
and it says the bear is in the north section of the complex. She asks if it’s
still alive, and it is. Corncob suggests we try to make friends with it.
Pujol and Corncob find some strange metal weapons, somewhat
like what the metal golem had. Fathom has them show them to the wall spell, and
ask it for instructions on using it. It shows them diagrams and tells them how
to use the weapons.
Pujol has the wall spell show him the map again, and we head
to one of the central rooms to look for Billy. We go to the room, open the
door, and find two more golems inside. Once runs up to Abran and tries to grab
him, but he dodges out of the way. Those up close to the door start fighting
the metal golems. Pujol tries using his new weapon, but apparently wasn’t
paying quite enough attention to the instructions. When he fires it, he sprays
the projectiles everywhere.
I turn to watch the hallway behind us in case the ruckus we
are making attracts attention. Sure enough, after a few more seconds it sounds
like something is approaching. As the others take down one of the golems, the
bear starts rushing down the hallways behind us to attack. I shoot it, but it
has little effect. Corncob takes it down. Fathom asks the wall if it can turn
off the golems; it says it can, but only if provided with the security code.
Once the other golem is taken down, Abran goes in and
searches the room. He finds another weird weapon, but this one is longer than
the ones Pujol and Corncob grabbed.
We head to the other undamaged rooms shown on the map, and
they turn out to be some kind of medical area. The child is on a table inside.
There’s a golem in there with him, standing by. The wall says Billy is getting
an implant.
We break the window in the door, and Pujol gets the robot
inside to stop the procedure. We go in, examine Billy, and find he’s got a
wound on the back of his head, but it’s mostly healed.
Billy wakes up and tells us he got the implant so he could
use some weird goggles he found in the caves. Lovely. Right then, the lights
dim, and we leave.
