[IC] Trespassers DC: Tribal Times (Forgotten Realms Hunt)

[DragonRage]

Ena looks for magic but finds Solara, who is going around gathering everyone up.  It seems Stellio and Freya would like assistance dealing with the Flower God and cultist situation.

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Law is able to find a trader and his barge, and barters fixing his boat up for 5 pounds of pig iron, which is unfortunately the best metal available, before Solara finds him.

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The Flower Priest informs Stellio that the big battle was three months ago, and that no large attacks have been launched since then, though cultists have continued to sporadically attempt to infiltrate them.  Most are caught quickly, but one almost got the gate unbarred and open before they were found.

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Before Solara comes to fetch her, Lilly receives the +1 Wyvern Hide Armor of Macebane in exchange for her glass shards, which when equipped grants her +10% evasion and 5 damage reduction vs blunt impacts that aren’t falling damage.

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Lucine attempts to study the scroll of mending to learn its secrets.  Intelligence check 9 v 14 failure!  Quality 17.  Random Bitz 43.  Lucine can’t read the language that the scroll is in.  It doesn’t look even vaguely like any script she’s seen before.  Tim attempts to help her translate it, but that doesn’t make things much clearer.  It seems you need to be able to read the scroll yourself to use it properly.  Solara comes to collect her and Tim once they are done.

---------------------------------

After the group is gathered at the Flower Temple, Stellio and the priest catch you all up on what has been discussed, and the priest leads you on a long hike through the woods outside the settlement.  He seems relatively confident that the group won’t be attacked, though the presence of what appears to be two wizards and a knight is likely the basis of that.  After around an hour of walking, the group approaches what appears to be a hill in the middle of the forest.  Except hills are neither that angular nor that pink.

 

It really looks like someone took a giant, metal building, and then chopped it into little pieces.  Then, a few years later, somebody completely different took those pieces and put them together, working off a slightly blurry photo of what the original building was supposed to look like, and then painted the whole thing with hot pink camo to cover up as many of the inexpert repairs as possible.  The structure looks broken, and also like it wasn’t in great shape even before it ended up here.  As the flower priest approaches, the structure emits a distinctly unhealthy-sounding noise, like loads of gears grinding together, and a few rivets pop off the front.

 

“C-co-conander-commander Jim!  You’re back, I’m back, it’s a-all back-front-ba-ackwards,” The construct rasps in a voice that sounds pieced together from dozens of prerecorded voices to anyone familiar with audio technology.  “COME GET SOME!  B-b-b-b-b-b…  Need more supply de-pots!”  It emits another grinding noise, and a hatch briefly opens on the front, letting an open crate fall to the ground, filled with grenades and rifle magazines.  A single gun falls on top of it with a clatter.  “I-it’s dark, Jim.  So c-cold.  Can-can-can-won’t see out.  Sweet home Zerg and a shotgun and d-d-dark, all dark, all fall down.”

 

The priest looks at the presented munitions with an inscrutable expression, but picks up the offering with a sigh and a grunt of effort.  “We are grateful for your generosity, Flower God, as always, but we aren’t low on your blessed arms at the moment.  I brought these people here to help you.  Our prayers have not restored your strength, not the way they should, but perhaps they have been answered in a more unusual way.”

 

“He-e-elp?  No help, not dan-ger,” The construct rasps, “Not pro-pro-pro-defended.  Pro-tec-tor.  I protect.  Mu-u-ust protect.  Civilians top prior-or-or-or…  Save them saved them preserve and prot-t-t-t-t…”  More grinding noises are emitted, followed by a harsh clang of metal on metal.

[Hal Henderics]

"By the p-precursors..."

 

"I've never seen a machine function with this much damage."

 

"I can-"

 

"I can only pray that it lacks sensory feedback.  The amount of broken components that must be in there."

 

Law steps back at one of the loud noises.

 

"It won't be long now, eventually driveshafts and some of the gears are going to start breaking entirely, and once parts like that start to go, there's no fixing it without a blueprint."

[DragonRage]

Law fiddles with his scan-staff, and hits the jackpot almost immediately.

 

Law divines that this construct is in fact a starship called a Behemoth-class battlecruiser, that it was created by salvaging at least a dozen wrecked ships of the same class rather than built conventionally, that it is serving as the body of a machine intelligence calling itself Tiffany, and that vehicle and AI alike have taken terrible, terrible damage from their crash-landing; the spinal section that connects the front and rear halves of the starship is particularly battered.  Since then, the AI has been scavanging parts from the ship to create the things she gave the villagers, sacrificing even vital components to ensure their safety.  It’s a testament to the sheer hardiness of her hardware and a staggering amount of redundant systems that anything is working at all.

 

The list of functions are even better, even if they’re a bit… worrisome in some cases:

‘Fire Yamato Cannon’

‘Initiate Self-Destruct’

‘Activate Warp Drive’

‘Deploy Damage Control SCVs’

‘Dump Reactor Core’ (With sub-options for cores 1-9)

‘Deploy Mining SCVs’

‘Ignite Sublight Engines’

'|2353+ 4|)_)|_|+4|\\|+' (|#4(+0|2`/ |)3|#4|_|1+5)

‘Reset Adjutant’ (Shut down and restart)

There are a lot of other options, but all of them have red warning labels indicating that hardware damage or lack of access to interior components makes activating them inadvisable at best.

[Hal Henderics]

"Where is the closest Mine?  It's crucial to your god's survival."  Law says with some steel in his voice.

 

He manipulates the holographic screen, scrolling through the options and data at his disposal.

 

"They've been making your weapons from their own body, killing themselves to try and save you all."

[Chevaleresse]

Lucine followed the rest of the party to the location of the "god" with a sullen look on her face. Her abject failure to actually piece together anything about the magic in the scroll was frustrating, and she actually hit Opal (producing an irritated squawk but no real effect otherwise) at one point during the process. Once they actually arrived, though, the wreckage - definitely a more apt descriptor than "god," at least to her view - was an effective distraction. After she took a few moments to gape, and a few extra to wonder if this was going to be like one of those movies where the machines suddenly turned on the humans because of corrupted programming, she spoke up. "Um, should we try to convince it that we don't need any more help right now? If my computer sounded like that I'd definitely turn it off."

[Hal Henderics]

"Are you sure it will ever turn back on if we turn it off now?"

 

"The only person here with the sheer know how and production facilities needed to repair this unit is itself."

 

"And it's unwilling to fix itself willingly."

 

Law pips through several screens, tapping symbols that bleed and blend into one another as he manipulates his scanstave.

 

"So I'm going to force the matter.  They have repair and mining drones they can deploy.  I need to know where a supply of metals and resources are.  They've resorted to auto-cannibalization to fulfill it's goals.  They need a supply of raw material."

 

Law seems to have forgotten his fears in the moment, wholly absorbed in manipulating data.

[Strider]

"Unwilling, not unable? It sounds as though it doesn't recognize that it is injured? Or maybe some other misalignment of priorities?" This had been one of the first subjects that Dr. Aslan had instructed Ena on, and the reason why she had three independent damage assessment modules located around her body. Fear of having a great intelligence unable to determine when it had been damaged and perhaps had fundamental hardware knocked out of commission.

 

"Can we even tell whether it still had uncorrupted blueprints for itself? We may need to. . . wing it in some areas, but I'm sure we can. Right?" It was painful to contemplate, but if the answer was no, they might need to shut it down completely, and end the suffering.

[Hal Henderics]

"I've got all the working functions here on my screen.  Take a look for yourself."

 

"If they weren't able to deploy repair drones, I wouldn't be able to make it deploy them either."

 

Law swipes the holographic screen, and it flies over to Ena, where it expands slightly to match her stature.

[StormLord]

Tim wasn't exactly "Skilled" or "Experienced" when it came to more advance tech and mechanical constructs, his skills lay in Transmutation and the related schools of magic instead.  So when they came upon the massive machine he was....interested, confused, but over all a bit lost for what to do.  That is until the man-rat-weasel-thing Law?  Mentioned needing raw materials.

 

"I may actually be able to help there.  What sort of materials does it need?"
Even as he spoke Tim took a step to the side and summoned up a larger version of his Transmutation circle in a clear area on the ground.  If there was any loose scrap from the great machine laying around he'd also pick a piece of that up.

[DragonRage]

"I'm sorry, but the closest mine is a dwarven enclave thirty leagues from here.  And even if we went there, the Flower God's skin isn't made of tin or brass," 'Jim' the priest admits, "We have to import all our metal for a reason."

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Tim finds a shard of scrap metal the length of his arm and checks its EMC cost.  The ten pounds or so of mystery metal is worth SIX HUNDRED EMC!  What the heck is this stuff made of, solid DNA?

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"D-d-damage detected; deploy-deploy-deployoyoying SCVs," Tiffany states.  A door to the side of the wall facing the party starts opening, but it only gets a meter before it snags on a fallen tree leaning against her superstructure.  The door tries to ram past the obstruction a few times but doesn't seem to have the strength to break through.  "Eeeerrrror 407 bay doors nonononagonal.  Deferring maintenance to later cycle."

[Hal Henderics]

"Tim, prepare a circle, I want every able bodied person here to grab a shovel or an axe.  I want the area clear of debris.  I need to get to work."

 

Law begins printing Emergency Circuit Boards, RAM, and Memory Storage using his Alloy Printer and his 3 Metal Sawblades, and a thin foil case to store them safely in.

 

If the Drone Bay isn't open, Law gets someone to help him shoot the peacemaker at it on low power to trigger another maintenance attempt to open the bay doors, and slip inside with his kit.

 

"I'm going to attempt manual repairs to get them thinking straight,  It can't hurt.  Tim, start gathering EMC, Produce Precursor Metal and stockpile it by the door.  It's not perfect, but nothing about this situation is perfect."

 

[Chevaleresse]

Lucine didn't seem particularly keen on grabbing any tools; she wasn't sure if the "able bodied" description applied to kids. Did it? Either way, a far more interesting thought occurred to her. "Law, can I borrow that metal printer for a little bit? I want to try something." Assuming she got what she requested from him  - that metal he used would probably work for a ritual circle, and might actually work better than the liquid circle she'd initially planned - she set about preparing a ritual circle that some might've recognized from her earlier summonings. She made sure to drag over a piece of wreckage so that she could point the ritual at the battlecrusier's plating as a catalyst for her Class Card, and soon enough had the ritual for creating one of the cards prepped and ready. She channeled power into it, and after a flash of light, a new card appeared. . .

[Hal Henderics]

"Oh, Uhh.  S-sure."  Law caves instantly.

[StormLord]

Tim whistles as he picks up the chunk of scrap and has a look at it's actual value.  He didn't know what it was made out of, but it was more rare and valuable than gold or any gemstone.
He looked over to Law and listened to what he(?) had to say, then nodded and started to move back to his circle before watching the little creature produce its alloy printer and start making circuits, only to have Lucine ask for it a moment later.
"Here, take these."

Law would turn around to see Tim having produced about ten circuit boards similar to those from the last world and a large bundle of insulated wire.

"Look, I don't have enough energy to produce much of that metal from before, but I can clear this faster than anyone with shovels."

With that he deposited the materials and stood looking around some and digging into a cloak pocket.

"Take a step back and I'll have this cleared in a second, just wouldn't want anyone to get hurt."

The last part seemed to be tacked on as an afterthought, this was reinforced by the fact that he didn't really wait very long for anyone to actually step back.

He pulled out a dull grey gem and held it out in front of himself, with sudden force the dirt and debris from around the structure ripped themselves from the ground and flew towards the gem where they promptly disappeared into nothingness.  Within a minute or two he would've cleared any dirt or stone surrounding the structure and given the others time to clear out any trees or larger debris he couldn't manage.  He immediately tucked the gem back into one of his pockets.
 

[Chevaleresse]

Quote

 

Rider Class Card summoned: Jim Raynor, Marshal of Mar Sara

Include- Riding B+: Lucine gains the ability to ride anything short of a phantasmal beast as if she had years of practice, and to ride motorcycles and other powered bikes with extremely superhuman levels of skill. She gains [essence]% evasion while riding a motorcycle or other powered bike.

Install- Overload (Stimpack) C: Lucine can pay 25% of her MHP to gain an extra action this turn, which must be spent on moving or attacking. This can only be done once per turn, and only during her turns.

Lucine was met with a slight conundrum. Her plan had succeeded, swimmingly as far as she could tell, but a problem was making itself immediately apparent; the only person she could ask about this particular card was the ship's AI. That didn't seem to be a particularly productive course of action, given the AI's garbled replies to most stimuli and that it might elect to try something that would grind up its internals even more. Additionally, she had this odd feeling that she could make the card better somehow, but given that she wasn't even really sure what it did at all yet, that was going to have to wait. Still, it'd worked, and the wave of tiredness that washed over her from the summoning was largely counteracted by her satisfaction in summoning another Class Card from a strange world.

[Strider]

"Oh, so it's a ship. That does make sense. I do not know exactly how to operate your device Law, is there a way we could access data logs? The events that lead to the crash may assist in repairs." Additionally, looking at how the intelligence perceived the events going on around it could give some vital information about its functioning.

 

With Law's input, Ena will try to access ship's logs, to try to determine a few things, such as how long the ship had been lying here, what might have lead to the crash, whether it was recording previous interactions with these people, etc. Of course, it could be that the logs were nonexistent, in which case, Ena would head over the maintenance door that had been until recently blocked by the tree, and assist in opening it if there was still anything impeding its opening.

[Endlessblaze]

Lilly winces at all the grinding the massive machine makes. And it dident seem to recognize the danger it was in.

But maybe if she could use voice....

 

Now voicing things that weren't organic was a curious thing. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it dident. The basic rules were known. A target had to have an appropriate level of intelligence. And they had to be "alive" in some sense of the word. What this meant varied. it could mean free will, or emotion, or even something like representing something that was alive or connected to life. (Greater elementals could sometimes fall into that.) But even then, it would often fail for no disconcernable reason.

 

Luckily for Lilly, Whatever qualities the massive machine possessed, it was enough for her voice to reach.
Unfortunately for Lilly, the usual translation effect failed to kick in. And as the machine both operated in binary, and at much greater speeds then Lilly was used to working with, the untranslated data raced through her mind faster then she could comprehend, even if she had been able to understand binary to begin with.  

She recoiled and cut the link as a seemingly endless stream of numbers slammed against the inside of her skull.

"Owowowowowowowowow!" She holds her head with a hand and looks up at the party.

"My magic considers this machine alive. I don't know why EXACTLY. But if it does, healing magic should work....But its soooo massive...."

[GodofGamingRWBY]

Freya

 

For the most part, Freya had to cover her ears as the group approached the “Flower God”... Which was not really much of a “God” rather than some sort of giant metal building. That made noises. And talked in a very choppy manner.

 

The weirdest part was the fact that her Necromancy actually seemed to resonate with it. Like it was alive, with only some parts being considered ‘dead’. Considering it seemed completely made out of metal, this was something Freya didn’t expect.

 

And did not want to mess with while other people were giving their shots at it.

 

“Yeah, I’m not messing with this thing. Buuut…” she trailed off, looking at all the wood that was messing with the machine, “Hmm…. Gimme a sec” she commented, before taking a deep breath. Then, tendrils of Necromancy began to seep out of her staff, moving towards the wood to reanimate them, and move them out of the machine’s way.

[DragonRage]

Law is able to induce the bay doors to open using the system access he got with his staff, and slip inside along with anyone else small who wants to go with him (Ador and Lucine could fit, though it would be a bit tight for the latter).  Once inside, it rapidly becomes apparent why Tiffany is still functioning.  The inside is far too cramped for the adult human-sized users it was probably designed for because every hallway is packed with redundant systems; conduits for power and coolant, armored plates, and what Law thinks are probably flamethrower turrets coat the interior of the vessel, along with a few quadrupedal drones that wander around, making minor repairs.  Law freezes in fear as one of the turrets sweeps over him, but it appears to dismiss him as a non-threat after a few seconds.  (Intelligence check 23 vs 15) Law is able to recognize from the web of conduits a set of fiber-optic cables, of the sort used to transport high volumes of data among many societies.  It’s possible if he followed these cables he could reach the AI’s mainframe.

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Tim clears the debris without any problems, gaining EMC appropriate to around a ton of bulk wood, stone, and dirt.

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Ena is able to find the ship’s logs.  However, it seems that the AI has been using them as a personal diary, and the last entries are from before the crash.

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Freya attempts to make a zombie tree, and succeeds!  However, she forgot one key problem.  Trees can’t move.  However, she also gets the skeletons of a pair of beavers that apparently died near here at some point in the past.  This has potential…

[Hal Henderics]

Law uses a scanstave charge on one of the repair drones to read it for options, expending a charge and leaving him with 2 more charges.

[Strider]

That doesn't really matter. Ena started to quickly flick through the different logs, recording what she saw as she read. Uploading it would be quicker, but she didn't fully know how to use this device, and it would probably be slightly more dangerous if there was any form of data corruption.

 

Following this, Ena will attempt to locate schematics for the ship, focusing on alternative entrance and exit points, and possibly using said schematics to help guid people who can fit inside from the exterior.

[Chevaleresse]

Lucine shrugged. Best way to find out was to just test it and see what happened. She pinned down Opal for a moment, extracted her current Include, and slotted in this "Jim Raynor" card. She wondered how that felt occasionally; she didn't feel much of the transition herself, since the abilities were sort of dormant until she actually activated Opal. . . but then, some of them definitely had effects when she wasn't transformed, too. I really need to just open up Opal sometime and figure out how it works. . . The box, despite not having any facial expressions or ability to read Lucine's thoughts, still looked concerned; it wasn't often Lucine looked at it with the curious look she gave, say, a unique and unfamiliar firearm. 

 

That done, she slipped into the ship, having nothing better to do and being largely unchaperoned. "Did you guys find anything? Maybe something about a, um, 'Jim Raynor?' I think he's important to this ship, somehow."

[Hal Henderics]

"Not in my files.  It must be data stored in a deeper memory bank."  Law says, working his staff.

 

"Caution is advised, invoking random names is dangerous enough around organics, much less a damaged A.I with unknown priorities."

[DragonRage]

Law is able to convince a maintenance drone to take him to the AI core, which turns out to be a half-hour hike from his current position.  The core itself is a mechanical, feminine, humanoid head and torso, made of cheery, pink plates over bundles of dark cables with glowing, sky-blue eyes.  The core itself seems to be intact, but many of the rat’s nest of cables surrounding it have frayed, been severed, or somehow pulled out of their sockets.  It seems that the wiring was done in haste and with more enthusiasm than expertise.

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Ena finds highly detailed schematics for the Behemoth-class battlecruiser.  Unfortunately, it quickly becomes apparent that these schematics don’t have much in common with Tiffany’s internal layout. 

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“C-ommander Raynor!  Looking gooooooo well, sir!  You’veveve lost weight!  Congradulations!” Tiffany exclaimes at Lucine, “Away missssssion sir?  You’llllllllllll bee wanting your bike then!”  There’s several loud crashing noises from the ship’s rear section, and then a sleek hover-bike slowly makes its way over to the homunculus.

 

The vulture bike is a light and extremely fast vehicle that occupies 2 action slots when equipped, and provides no protection to the rider on its own.  However, it does give the rider +2 dexterity and access to the following action:

Spider Mines (3/3):  3 times per encounter, the rider can lay a spider mine in front of target ally.  When an ally protected by a mine is attacked from close range, the mine charges the attacker and explodes, dealing 2d6 damage.

[Hal Henderics]

"Beginning Repair.  Please minimalize noncrucial functions."

 

Law states loudly and clearly, working his way into her workings, he begins by grabbing his Rubber Grips and stripping them, wrapping the rubber around wires that have breached sheathes.

He then crawls his way into her core, with the knowledge that his Precursor Robe will serve as protection in this environment.  He seeks out empty slots and fills them with parts he has produced, fresh from his personal factory.

Lastly, he uses his Precursor Multitool to make a web of cables to splice into all of the ports, trusting precursor nanotechnology to sort out signals while he unplugs and reforged all of the cables into replacements.

 

"Facial Recognition and Security Software seems to be broken down.  While useful here, it's a sign that even core systems are compromised."

 

"Could explain why they are aiding the village.  Mistaking them for allies by some metric or another, assuming repairs or orders to self repair would come from them when it is tactically advantageous."