The Center of Time

[fireinthedust]

Duncan breathes, calming himself in the after-battle.

"Aye, I felt it with my blade. Like as not a Numenera that heats this range, undiscovered before now. Perhaps activated recently? Some kind of ancient magic to make the land fertile? Whatever it is, let's save it for now. We're still fresh, but the caravan up ahead... I would know if they yet lived."

Duncan checks on the damage to their caravan, helps to settle things, then readies himself to go on ahead.

"We can't leave our group unguarded, but we should have a look at what's before us. I'll lead a scout team up ahead. We need to move fast, in case the other band needs help."

He puts a device overtop his spine, a numenera that fuses with the glowing discs up his back. He turns to the group before moving off alone.

"Who's with me?"

 

[Isida Kep'Tukari]

Duncan readies himself to check on Kolos Githian's herd, sword at the ready, when Dross comes riding out of the foliage on his brehm, small cuts showing on both of them.

"Bleeding wounds of my sister's aunt pet rubar! Duncan, you oversized son of a xi-drake, what happened?" Dross looks around at the scattered bodies, and Echo calmly extracting fleshettes from the corpses, and nods sharply. "Same as happened to us, by the looks of it. We lost four aneen straight away from the back of the caravan, and sounds like another three from the middle. The front guards say they were all right. You?"

Echo, you extract the rest of your weapons, returning them to their source. There's a strange feeling under your feet, a tingling sensation that goes away then returns as you move about to get your fleshettes. Several paces of the odd feeling, several more of nothing, then the feeling returns again. Goes away again, then returns as you keep moving in a straight line. Then ceases entirely. Three spots of strange sensation under the soil.

OOC: Dross, you may recall, you met at the Scavenger's Art. He's one of Kolos Githian's guards.

 

[fireinthedust]

"Aye, we were attacked, but we stand yet. I take it your camp survived the attack?"Duncan thinks, then continues. "Did you see anything up ahead? Where did they come from, only from behind or from the side?"

 

[iamrpgdm]

"If there's some synth under us, we'd best find out what it is. Perhaps it's linked to the vision we had or it triggered it." Antor says as he starts prodding the ground with the tip of his sword listening for the sound of synth on synth. (Searching around 1d20=16)

 

[Isida Kep'Tukari]

"Aye, we were attacked, but we stand yet. I take it your camp survived the attack?"Duncan thinks, then continues. "Did you see anything up ahead? Where did they come from, only from behind or from the side?"

"Both sides. They rushed out of both sides of the trees on either side of the road. No one heard or saw anything before the attack, so I suppose they were stalking us. We had our eyes peeled for the damned things, but didn't catch sight of a single beak before they were on us."

Antor, you slide your sword through the forest loam and after a bit of digging around, hear and feel the sound of metal-on-metal underneath your blade. Carving away the dirt, you see a large square hatch in the ground, the edges marked with odd softly-glowing symbols that pulse and move slightly, almost like candlelight.

 

[iamrpgdm]

Antor examines the hatch (1d20=13 - Numenera training) trying to determine how it functions. He then hollers to the others, "There's definitely something here. I've found a hatch of some sort."

 

[fireinthedust]

Duncan grunts at their "good luck". His tactical mind argued down his natural fear of going into the unknown, for while Numenera were dangerous, the alternative...

"Dross, you other guards: get the herd to hunker down back here, before the edge of the jungle. I'd have us move along, but this hatch may lead to the cause of this warm spot. We figure out what's down there, we could save ourselves leagues upon leagues of beast attacks. They will come back, again and again, until we've neither aneen nor guards left. Fortify here, where the beasts will only attack from one side, and wait for my return... our return.

"Echo, Antor, Father: feel up for finding some loot? Wisco, you did well in that fight. Join us. Whatever we're going to do, we should get to it quickly."

Duncan will help getting Githian's herd back to the edge of the forest, hunker them down, and then be ready to go down into the hatch to investigate.

 

[Shayuri]

Echo, seeing the glow from the symbols, rushes over to Antor's side as the 'silver lining' covering her dwindles and recedes back into her skin. She hunkers down, fascinated by the strange shining runes and carefully puts her hands on the hatch. Not trying to open or mess with it yet, but just examining it with every sense she has available.

(Echo is Specialized in Numenera: Die result 17)
http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4306176/

 

[Tashtego]

Seregal puts away his bow, wipes the sweat from his face and comes over to inspect the hatch, his face barely able to contain its excitement. "It's a grand discovery," he announces. "Do think this is what triggered the map?" He points out some things to Echo that she may have missed as she examines the hatch.

[OOC: I give Echo a belated +1 to her dice roll due to our special PC bonus.]

 

[Isida Kep'Tukari]

"Dross, you other guards: get the herd to hunker down back here, before the edge of the jungle. I'd have us move along, but this hatch may lead to the cause of this warm spot. We figure out what's down there, we could save ourselves leagues upon leagues of beast attacks. They will come back, again and again, until we've neither aneen nor guards left. Fortify here, where the beasts will only attack from one side, and wait for my return... our return."

Dross shakes his head a bit. "We're an hour's journey in, Duncan, a bit too long to backtrack both our caravans. But I can get them in a huddle, like the aneen do when they're protecting their young. That'll make it a damn sight harder to take anyone down one at a time." Dross goes to do that, arguing with Kolos Githian until he manages to explain the situation, and finally getting the aneen in a shoulder-to-shoulder huddle, several rings deep.

Antor, Echo, and Father Seren examine the hatch with great care, and realize it's just the top of some sort of access shaft. With the right manipulation of the symbols, the hatch should come right up. Studying the symbols, you're certain you can get it open without difficulty.

[OOC: Assuming you want to know what's in the box... If not, I'll edit later.]

Pressing a symbol here, gliding your fingers across another, twisting your fingertips across a third, and the hatch opens up. It reveals a platform about eight feet below the ground, with more symbols glowing on its side. The platform has no walls on three sides, and beyond its edge you can see a large room some sixty feet below the forest floor, dimly illuminated, with three large gleaming holes in the floor, surmounted by brightly-colored panels of some sort. There's a sound coming from the revealed room, a repeated rising whine that terminates in a loud whump!. Echo, you realize this sound is in the same pattern as the pulsing on your map...