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<blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 5016390" data-attributes="member: 1210"><p><em>Thirty-five years ago:</em></p><p></p><p>“The others!” cried the technician. “Captain, we’re losing the cage!”</p><p></p><p>The airship shuddered and lurched as it lost weight. The captain cried out as the loss of her crew hit her. </p><p></p><p>Another explosion, and the technician said, “That’s two engines aflame, sir!”</p><p></p><p>The orange furred captain cried, “By Hobbes!” Large gold hoops were through both of her large cat ears. Her tail twitched madly, assisting her in keeping her balance in the shifting gondola as well as serving as a barometer of her agitation. “I would have thought something that has lasted this long might be able to stay in the sky a little longer!”</p><p></p><p>Wisely, the technician said nothing. He <em>had</em> advised her against taking the vessel out of its ancient dock, but once the captain had figured out how to open the outer doors of the mountaintop redoubt, there was no stopping her.</p><p></p><p>After all, what better way to spot a hidden mountaintop fortress than from above?</p><p></p><p>The acrid smell of the burning radiocrystal reached inside the gondola. “Sir,” the technician said hesitantly, “perhaps we should leave. I don’t think we can save-”</p><p></p><p>She cut him off. “You’re right, of course, Lerrmurr. You were right all along.” Her voice was ravaged by grief. “The crew are dead. Only we remain. We must flee.” The two of them moved close together so that she could sprinkle the <em>fall powder</em> on both of them. “We never should have tried to use this thing. Fifty thousand years is too old.” The deck of the gondola, suspended beneath the vast balloon of the airship, began to tilt alarmingly. The stench of the smoke kept growing stronger, making the technician’s eyes tear up and his head swim. His sensitive nose was burning in the toxic fumes. </p><p></p><p>The two of them moved to the edge of the gondola and leapt out the window. </p><p></p><p>They were still several hundred feet up, but it didn’t matter. Their feline reflexes enhanced to the utmost by the <em>fall powder</em>- a product of the same ancient tabaxi empire as the airship- and seconds later they hit the ground, rolled and came to their feet. The technician cried out and stumbled, then lifted one foot off of the ground and balanced on the other with a hiss.</p><p></p><p>“Are you all right?” the captain asked him.</p><p></p><p>“Broken,” he replied through gritted teeth.</p><p></p><p>In the sky behind him, the captain could see the airship getting lower and lower. It was going to crash, probably less than two miles away. They were nowhere near safe. “You have to move,” she said. “The airship is coming down. Hobbes knows what will happen then- we need to get back to our people and get a team to get the radiocrystals back before something terrible happens. We don’t have time to fashion a splint, so you will have to cling to my back.”</p><p></p><p>With some effort, they hoisted the technician onto his captain’s back, and the captain began to jog away- directly opposite from the airship’s path. Lerrmurr kept his eyes to the back, watching with horror as the ancient Miloxi airship slowly descended until, finally, there was a bloom of violet fire and a flash of burning light, followed by a terrific explosive noise. </p><p></p><p>Immediately, the meadows behind and around them began to burn. Trees closer to the blast ignited like tinder, and a huge bellow of smoke rose up across the entire horizon behind them. Worse yet, the fire began to spread towards them with appalling speed.</p><p></p><p>“I’m slowing you down too much!” cried the technician. “You have to drop me!”</p><p></p><p>His captain ignored him.</p><p></p><p>Lerrmurr did the only thing he could: he wrenched himself off of the captain, flinging himself to the ground. “Run!” he screamed. </p><p></p><p>The captain turned and saw the oncoming conflagration. She tried to pick up the technician again, but he resisted her. “Run!” he cried again. “Or we will both die!” </p><p></p><p>She ran.</p><p></p><p>Lerrmurr collapsed back and watched the violet-tinged flames approach. Already, the heat was burning his fur. <em>I die,</em> he thought, <em>that this land may live.</em></p><p></p><p>The flames closed around him, and he closed his eyes.</p><p></p><p>To awaken in excruciating pain. He felt as though he was on fire everywhere. His fur was gone, burned out; he could feel the cracked naked flesh of his body weeping pus. But he was alive. He opened his eyes, and found himself on a mat of straw in a hut of human construction. </p><p></p><p>A male human sat beside him. “You are awake,” the human observed.</p><p></p><p>Lerrmurr mewed, but could do little more.</p><p></p><p>The tabaxi technician was not too familiar with human facial expressions, but somehow the smile on the man’s face did not strike him as pleasant.</p><p></p><p>“Good,” the human said. “There are things we want to know.”</p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p><em>The present:</em></p><p></p><p>Our heroes move up the draped silvery fabric towards the strange cat-folk at the center of the wreckage. The wolf-sized metal cat lopes towards them, while the feline humanoid instead hurries to the broken cabin, or whatever it is, and opens the door. Another of its kind emerges to join it.</p><p></p><p>“Stop them!” commands Novak. He gestures and a burst of <em>fungal rot</em> hits the pair of humanoids, while the others move forward to engage. The iron cat bounds forward and leaps to the attack, with the two cat-folk hot on their heels. A fierce melee ensues, with Karl staying back and hurling magical attacks and Novak using the reach that his <em>vine lash</em> gives him while the others fight up close. </p><p></p><p>After a moment, another of the cat-humanoids emerges from the crashed airship’s cabin. He looks a little bit different from the others- he wears a harness festooned with odd tools, and while the other two look sleek and trim, this one is chunky and less fit. He creates some kind of <em>concealing haze</em> and hangs back, seemingly getting a <em>fix</em> on Shifty and setting up for a single devastating attack.*</p><p></p><p>He never has a chance. </p><p></p><p>The party moves too quickly, cutting through cat-folk and cat-construct alike. Kane shatters the iron cheetah, and the two humanoids in the front rank fall moments later. The final one is slain before he has a chance to strike. </p><p></p><p>“Well done!” exclaims Novak. “With luck, our mission is accomplished!” He sets to searching the fallen cat humanoids. While he does, Cavemouth tries to cut the fabric with his axe, but only succeeds in dulling the blade. Meanwhile, Novak finds that the one with the tool-bedecked harness has a hard case strapped to its side; he opens this and then grins. “The crystals!” he cries. Then his face falls as he examines the contents. “But not all of them.” </p><p></p><p>“So now what?” asks Shifty. </p><p></p><p>”We will check out the other areas of wreckage,” replies Novak. “With luck, the missing crystals are in there.”</p><p></p><p>“And if they’re not?” </p><p></p><p>“Then we will plunge into the earth tumors.”</p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p>The eerie, burnt landscape that the party traverses seems almost like an alien world. The blackened stumps seem like weird fingers pointing futilely at the sky. They reach the second area of debris after nearly an hour, their progress often impeded by ankle-deep drifts of ash. Debris is scattered about- mostly the strange silver fabric, but also a few bits of charred metal. </p><p></p><p>There has obviously been a fight of some kind here- several dead animals are about, as well as the corpse of a huge mutated bear, with a second vestigial head and a pair of wickedly barbed tentacles. <em>I bet that was on Novak’s team,</em> thinks Shifty.</p><p></p><p>There is no sign of the crystals that the party is seeking, so they move on towards the next area of wreckage. More sheets of the silvery fabric, folded and draped into a hill, and the remains of some kind of cage that must have fallen and shattered. Burned bones were scattered amongst the wreckage. </p><p></p><p>“Careful,” says Shar, nodding towards the bones. The party keeps a good eye on them, and after a few moments, they animate into a collection of decrepit skeletons. Our heroes de-animate them right back.** Again, however, there is no sign of the hoped-for crystals. </p><p></p><p>“Damn,” swears Sepia. “I don’t want to go in those things.”</p><p></p><p>“I will pay you well,” says Novak, “I assure you.”</p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p>The earth tumor swells like a zit on the land. It is the size of several square city blocks. The air near the tumor is warm and clammy, and smells of odd organic processes, including a rich helping of rotten meat. Weird fleshy growths thrust from the ground like buildings, some of them moving. Other areas have foul yellow crystal formations forming barriers and jagged outcroppings. Some areas of the tumor move. </p><p></p><p>Sepia shudders. “This is disgusting.”</p><p></p><p>The party enters the tumor, trying to stay on the ground but rapidly finding no path that will take them further inward without requiring that they mount the tumor itself. Soon the area seems to respond to their presence, with growths and fluids moving to bar their path, until finally they are ejected, battered and fouled by noxious chemicals.*** </p><p></p><p>“Damn, that place is foul,” says Shar. </p><p></p><p>“We must reach the center and see if the crystals are there,” declares Novak.</p><p></p><p>Shifty grows more and more uneasy. <em>I just </em>know<em> that this guy is going to turn on us,</em> he thinks. <em>The only question is, when?</em></p><p></p><p>The party plunges into the tumor again, fighting through membranous closures and slogging along channels filling with organic soup. This time, the tumor responds quickly, trying to channel them out, but they persist until they finally break into the central area.</p><p></p><p>In the center is a piece of wreckage: not the silvery fabric that they have seen so much of, but some kind of mangled metal device. A hatch is half-sprung, and a violet radiance emanates from behind it. Yet the entire device is tightly wrapped in fleshy appendages forming a protuberance sprouting mushroom-like from the ground.</p><p></p><p>The tumor goes crazy as the party tries to cut, pry or trick the device (which Novak calls an “engine”) free of it tumorous housing. The ground starts to ripple, attempting to throw them back; fingers of tough, horny material rise up and try to herd them away. Fissures and furrows, ridges and rises form. </p><p></p><p>Finally, though, they manage to cut the engine free. Almost immediately, the area around the ‘housing’ dies, turning gray and putrescent. </p><p></p><p>Novak rushes to the engine and pries the compartment open, retrieves a crystal and places it in the hard case that he took from the cat-person. Closing it securely, he replaces in on his belt. </p><p></p><p>Then our heroes flee for their lives, trying to outrun the collapse of the earth tumor.</p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p>After the party makes good their escape, Karl asks, “So you have what you need now, right?” </p><p></p><p>“Not yet,” Novak replies. “We still don’t have all of it.”</p><p></p><p>“How much more is there?” demands Shifty.</p><p></p><p>”There is only one more crystal,” says Novak. “And I am paying you all very well.” </p><p></p><p>“Fifty gold each, right?”</p><p></p><p>“Probably more.”</p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p>There is only one more earth tumor; it seems likely that the party will find another engine within the center. The experience is very similar to their breaching of the first one, with the tumor resisting their intrusion, but their experience in the first one help them know what to expect in this second one. Soon they reach the center and cut the engine free of the organic growths suckling upon it, and the last earth tumor starts to die. They flee ahead of the wave of decay. </p><p></p><p>Again making it out just ahead of the collapse of the tumor, the party scrambles to a safe distance across the burnt landscape, then pauses to catch their breath. </p><p></p><p>“Did we get it?” asks Shifty.</p><p></p><p>“Yes,” Novak answers. </p><p></p><p>The hair on Shifty’s neck stands up. <em>Now. He’s doing it now.</em></p><p></p><p>“And now you must all die.”</p><p></p><p><em><strong>Next Time:</strong></em> Novak turns on the party!</p><p></p><p>*The tabaxi technician’s <em>fixes</em> are a lot like an assassin’s <em>shrouds.</em></p><p></p><p>**This was a very easy encounter- only worth 200 xp, and there were 6 pcs present. </p><p></p><p>***This was a skill challenge- one that the party failed (several times, before all was said and done). Failed checks resulted in lost healing surges.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="the Jester, post: 5016390, member: 1210"] [i]Thirty-five years ago:[/i] “The others!” cried the technician. “Captain, we’re losing the cage!” The airship shuddered and lurched as it lost weight. The captain cried out as the loss of her crew hit her. Another explosion, and the technician said, “That’s two engines aflame, sir!” The orange furred captain cried, “By Hobbes!” Large gold hoops were through both of her large cat ears. Her tail twitched madly, assisting her in keeping her balance in the shifting gondola as well as serving as a barometer of her agitation. “I would have thought something that has lasted this long might be able to stay in the sky a little longer!” Wisely, the technician said nothing. He [i]had[/i] advised her against taking the vessel out of its ancient dock, but once the captain had figured out how to open the outer doors of the mountaintop redoubt, there was no stopping her. After all, what better way to spot a hidden mountaintop fortress than from above? The acrid smell of the burning radiocrystal reached inside the gondola. “Sir,” the technician said hesitantly, “perhaps we should leave. I don’t think we can save-” She cut him off. “You’re right, of course, Lerrmurr. You were right all along.” Her voice was ravaged by grief. “The crew are dead. Only we remain. We must flee.” The two of them moved close together so that she could sprinkle the [i]fall powder[/i] on both of them. “We never should have tried to use this thing. Fifty thousand years is too old.” The deck of the gondola, suspended beneath the vast balloon of the airship, began to tilt alarmingly. The stench of the smoke kept growing stronger, making the technician’s eyes tear up and his head swim. His sensitive nose was burning in the toxic fumes. The two of them moved to the edge of the gondola and leapt out the window. They were still several hundred feet up, but it didn’t matter. Their feline reflexes enhanced to the utmost by the [i]fall powder[/i]- a product of the same ancient tabaxi empire as the airship- and seconds later they hit the ground, rolled and came to their feet. The technician cried out and stumbled, then lifted one foot off of the ground and balanced on the other with a hiss. “Are you all right?” the captain asked him. “Broken,” he replied through gritted teeth. In the sky behind him, the captain could see the airship getting lower and lower. It was going to crash, probably less than two miles away. They were nowhere near safe. “You have to move,” she said. “The airship is coming down. Hobbes knows what will happen then- we need to get back to our people and get a team to get the radiocrystals back before something terrible happens. We don’t have time to fashion a splint, so you will have to cling to my back.” With some effort, they hoisted the technician onto his captain’s back, and the captain began to jog away- directly opposite from the airship’s path. Lerrmurr kept his eyes to the back, watching with horror as the ancient Miloxi airship slowly descended until, finally, there was a bloom of violet fire and a flash of burning light, followed by a terrific explosive noise. Immediately, the meadows behind and around them began to burn. Trees closer to the blast ignited like tinder, and a huge bellow of smoke rose up across the entire horizon behind them. Worse yet, the fire began to spread towards them with appalling speed. “I’m slowing you down too much!” cried the technician. “You have to drop me!” His captain ignored him. Lerrmurr did the only thing he could: he wrenched himself off of the captain, flinging himself to the ground. “Run!” he screamed. The captain turned and saw the oncoming conflagration. She tried to pick up the technician again, but he resisted her. “Run!” he cried again. “Or we will both die!” She ran. Lerrmurr collapsed back and watched the violet-tinged flames approach. Already, the heat was burning his fur. [i]I die,[/i] he thought, [i]that this land may live.[/i] The flames closed around him, and he closed his eyes. To awaken in excruciating pain. He felt as though he was on fire everywhere. His fur was gone, burned out; he could feel the cracked naked flesh of his body weeping pus. But he was alive. He opened his eyes, and found himself on a mat of straw in a hut of human construction. A male human sat beside him. “You are awake,” the human observed. Lerrmurr mewed, but could do little more. The tabaxi technician was not too familiar with human facial expressions, but somehow the smile on the man’s face did not strike him as pleasant. “Good,” the human said. “There are things we want to know.” *** [i]The present:[/i] Our heroes move up the draped silvery fabric towards the strange cat-folk at the center of the wreckage. The wolf-sized metal cat lopes towards them, while the feline humanoid instead hurries to the broken cabin, or whatever it is, and opens the door. Another of its kind emerges to join it. “Stop them!” commands Novak. He gestures and a burst of [i]fungal rot[/i] hits the pair of humanoids, while the others move forward to engage. The iron cat bounds forward and leaps to the attack, with the two cat-folk hot on their heels. A fierce melee ensues, with Karl staying back and hurling magical attacks and Novak using the reach that his [i]vine lash[/i] gives him while the others fight up close. After a moment, another of the cat-humanoids emerges from the crashed airship’s cabin. He looks a little bit different from the others- he wears a harness festooned with odd tools, and while the other two look sleek and trim, this one is chunky and less fit. He creates some kind of [i]concealing haze[/i] and hangs back, seemingly getting a [i]fix[/i] on Shifty and setting up for a single devastating attack.* He never has a chance. The party moves too quickly, cutting through cat-folk and cat-construct alike. Kane shatters the iron cheetah, and the two humanoids in the front rank fall moments later. The final one is slain before he has a chance to strike. “Well done!” exclaims Novak. “With luck, our mission is accomplished!” He sets to searching the fallen cat humanoids. While he does, Cavemouth tries to cut the fabric with his axe, but only succeeds in dulling the blade. Meanwhile, Novak finds that the one with the tool-bedecked harness has a hard case strapped to its side; he opens this and then grins. “The crystals!” he cries. Then his face falls as he examines the contents. “But not all of them.” “So now what?” asks Shifty. ”We will check out the other areas of wreckage,” replies Novak. “With luck, the missing crystals are in there.” “And if they’re not?” “Then we will plunge into the earth tumors.” *** The eerie, burnt landscape that the party traverses seems almost like an alien world. The blackened stumps seem like weird fingers pointing futilely at the sky. They reach the second area of debris after nearly an hour, their progress often impeded by ankle-deep drifts of ash. Debris is scattered about- mostly the strange silver fabric, but also a few bits of charred metal. There has obviously been a fight of some kind here- several dead animals are about, as well as the corpse of a huge mutated bear, with a second vestigial head and a pair of wickedly barbed tentacles. [i]I bet that was on Novak’s team,[/i] thinks Shifty. There is no sign of the crystals that the party is seeking, so they move on towards the next area of wreckage. More sheets of the silvery fabric, folded and draped into a hill, and the remains of some kind of cage that must have fallen and shattered. Burned bones were scattered amongst the wreckage. “Careful,” says Shar, nodding towards the bones. The party keeps a good eye on them, and after a few moments, they animate into a collection of decrepit skeletons. Our heroes de-animate them right back.** Again, however, there is no sign of the hoped-for crystals. “Damn,” swears Sepia. “I don’t want to go in those things.” “I will pay you well,” says Novak, “I assure you.” *** The earth tumor swells like a zit on the land. It is the size of several square city blocks. The air near the tumor is warm and clammy, and smells of odd organic processes, including a rich helping of rotten meat. Weird fleshy growths thrust from the ground like buildings, some of them moving. Other areas have foul yellow crystal formations forming barriers and jagged outcroppings. Some areas of the tumor move. Sepia shudders. “This is disgusting.” The party enters the tumor, trying to stay on the ground but rapidly finding no path that will take them further inward without requiring that they mount the tumor itself. Soon the area seems to respond to their presence, with growths and fluids moving to bar their path, until finally they are ejected, battered and fouled by noxious chemicals.*** “Damn, that place is foul,” says Shar. “We must reach the center and see if the crystals are there,” declares Novak. Shifty grows more and more uneasy. [i]I just [/i]know[i] that this guy is going to turn on us,[/i] he thinks. [i]The only question is, when?[/i] The party plunges into the tumor again, fighting through membranous closures and slogging along channels filling with organic soup. This time, the tumor responds quickly, trying to channel them out, but they persist until they finally break into the central area. In the center is a piece of wreckage: not the silvery fabric that they have seen so much of, but some kind of mangled metal device. A hatch is half-sprung, and a violet radiance emanates from behind it. Yet the entire device is tightly wrapped in fleshy appendages forming a protuberance sprouting mushroom-like from the ground. The tumor goes crazy as the party tries to cut, pry or trick the device (which Novak calls an “engine”) free of it tumorous housing. The ground starts to ripple, attempting to throw them back; fingers of tough, horny material rise up and try to herd them away. Fissures and furrows, ridges and rises form. Finally, though, they manage to cut the engine free. Almost immediately, the area around the ‘housing’ dies, turning gray and putrescent. Novak rushes to the engine and pries the compartment open, retrieves a crystal and places it in the hard case that he took from the cat-person. Closing it securely, he replaces in on his belt. Then our heroes flee for their lives, trying to outrun the collapse of the earth tumor. *** After the party makes good their escape, Karl asks, “So you have what you need now, right?” “Not yet,” Novak replies. “We still don’t have all of it.” “How much more is there?” demands Shifty. ”There is only one more crystal,” says Novak. “And I am paying you all very well.” “Fifty gold each, right?” “Probably more.” *** There is only one more earth tumor; it seems likely that the party will find another engine within the center. The experience is very similar to their breaching of the first one, with the tumor resisting their intrusion, but their experience in the first one help them know what to expect in this second one. Soon they reach the center and cut the engine free of the organic growths suckling upon it, and the last earth tumor starts to die. They flee ahead of the wave of decay. Again making it out just ahead of the collapse of the tumor, the party scrambles to a safe distance across the burnt landscape, then pauses to catch their breath. “Did we get it?” asks Shifty. “Yes,” Novak answers. The hair on Shifty’s neck stands up. [i]Now. He’s doing it now.[/i] “And now you must all die.” [i][b]Next Time:[/b][/i][b][/b] Novak turns on the party! *The tabaxi technician’s [i]fixes[/i] are a lot like an assassin’s [i]shrouds.[/i] **This was a very easy encounter- only worth 200 xp, and there were 6 pcs present. ***This was a skill challenge- one that the party failed (several times, before all was said and done). Failed checks resulted in lost healing surges. [/QUOTE]
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