Kay's Journal, 3/5/2021 - Reaper Errant #020 - RVE Special!

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.