"It's like the game drawing in terrain when you're playing an MMO." Trav of course follows Smoke Alarm.

It takes about twenty minutes for the group to make the hike to the top of the rise.  All the way, the obelisk is a looming presence on their right -- it's hard to imagine that the group has escaped notice if there are any potential observers inside it.  But there has been no overt reaction.

Upon reaching a vantage point on the crest, Vinsen points, exclaiming, "That's it!  That's where your people are, Mr. Murcheson."  On the far side of the ridge, perhaps twice as far again as the group has already traveled, a clearing in the trees can be seen, with some sort of low structures dotted within it, although it's difficult to make out much more in the way of detail.

OOC: Awareness + Ingenuity + Keen Senses if applicable, all.

Coming to the end of the path, Smoke Alarm footed ahead and scrambled up the rise so she could get a good outlook, mayhaps before the noisy unwaring inbetweens got eyespied themselves. She outlooked down into the park with the little towers, squinting to eyespy things in the wide outdoors spaces,


OOC:
16:02, Today: Smoke Alarm rolled 15 using 2d6+9 with rolls of 3,3.  awareness(4) + ingenuity(3) + Keen Senses(2).

Stanley looks in the direction Vinsen is pointing.
OOC: 22:04, Today: Stanley Newton rolled 14 using 2d6+8 with rolls of 1,5.  Awareness (4) + Ingenuity (4).

Trav resists the urge to scan the entire structure, and takes off her glasses, to *see* the place with just normal eyes. Pull your mind down, get small, see it as they do. There's beauty in small. Small doesn't mean lesser, it means a different perspective, She says to herself.

"Are they being held against their will, or abused? Or are they simply stuck?"

OOC:
19:14, Today: The Traveller rolled 20 using 2d6+11 with rolls of 6,3.  Awareness+Ingenuity (8+3)
This message was last edited by the player at 00:14, Sun 10 Mar 2019.

With a bit of time to look, everyone can finally make out moving figures down ahead of them --clearly people, and there's no reason to think they aren't the Hecate Station crew as Vinsen has suggested.  The Traveller, taking a more holistic view, notes the organization and arrangement of the buildings, and the wide, cleared spaces surrounding them -- likely cultivated fields of some sort, which begs all sorts of questions given the makeup of the vegetation here.  It's clear, though, that this is a community if one formed out of necessity and circumstance.

As Smoke Alarm foots ahead of the others, her sharp ears pick up a high-pitched humming, somewhere in the trees above her.

'Ware trees! There's hummy-birds or buzzy-bees, or mayhaps electricky stuff up there.' Smoke alarmed the others as she footed back and outlooked up into the branches, trying to eyespy whatever was making the noise. She'd never eyespied trees that needed to be plugged in before.

The Traveller is astounded at this place. "This is an easel, finger painting but if a child could finger paint facsimiles of what blind creation has manifested. Look at this! It's like a digital sketch or study of what an actual world would be like. It's fascinating and beautiful. Whimsical! Cultivated fields! Crops made of math. I don't know quite what to say." She turns and surveys the entire thing in delight, as multiple tracks in her brain light up. The cosmos never ceases to amaze. She hopes she can meet whoever made all of this. She's not even using her glasses or sonic, wanting to understanding this in an unmediated manner.

Of course, she's oblivious to the buzzing.

OOC: Claiming an SP for Curious, being dumbfounded by the surroundings. That should put me at 6 SP atm.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:32, Wed 13 Mar 2019.

"Good to see people moving down there." Stanley says. "Maybe Kalath is there as well."

Smoke Alarm sees it up in the branches of the trees: a little hovering thing, of a yellow metallic color, with four buzzing whirlyblades and way too many eyes.  It's clearly another kind of flying cleaner, which only makes the Architect bells ring louder in her head; it seems like the TARDIS can hardly go anywhere anymore that doesn't have something like that.

'Ware cleaners!' Smoke Alarm yelped automatically, whipping out her arrowgun to point at the thing. It had surprised her, it looked just like the crabby Pool Cleaner back in Paradise Towers but flying, and it was loitering and outlooking and hiding in the tree like it was up to no good.


OOC: Attack phase!

On seeing Smoke Alarm go for a weapon, the flying cleaner plummets a few feet until it's out of the foliage of the trees, dips and angles itself, and accelerates away from the Kang!

OOC: It won't get out of range of Smoke before she has a chance to get off a shot; otherwise it is going to move, then dodge.

OOC: Its been so long (a regeneration ago in fact) since we did combat. Trav will go on the melee phase and thing give this thing some math sword action.

'No ball-games.' Rolling out from under the tree, Smoke whipped up her arrowgun, leading the flying cleaner thru the sight. 'No fly posts.' She squeezed the trigger and let fly a pointy metal dart, right into its whirly blades! 'No outgoing!'


OOC: I'll try to stop it flying away, by pinning it to a tree or blocking the blades.
13:38, Today: Smoke Alarm rolled 20 using 2d6+12 with rolls of 2,6. coordination(5) + marksman(3) + AoE(2) + Crack Shot(2).

At Smoke's warning, Stanley takes a quick glance at the drone thing and decides he should leave the fighting to Smoke and Trav. He heads for cover behind one of the trees, motioning for Vinsen and Murcheson to follow him.

The buzz-bot dives towards the trees, but Smoke Alarm's bolt flies true and strikes with a resounding PTANG!!  Its dive transforms summarily into a crash, and the drone bounces twice off the turf before rolling end over end to a halt.

OOC:
22:08, Today: The Guardian, for the NPC Flybot, rolled 15 using 2d6+8 with rolls of 1,6.  Dodging Smoke Alarm: Awareness(4) + Coordination(4).

Smoke does 4 damage for a bolt, and the thing hasn't got that much Strength to take it.  In some way it is disabled but not destroyed per your intention.

'Icehot!' Smoke Alarm whooped, then ran across the carpet-grass after it, before it had even crashed into the floor. As she footed up, she aimed her reloaded arrowgun at it, until she was sure the cleaner was not about to fly up again. It was still making little buzzy noises, wasn't outgoing anywhere. Holstering her arrowgun, Smoke bent and picked it up. There weren't any rubbish bins she could eyespy, so she carried it back to Traveller and the sciencists. 'Mayhaps you can show-and-tell something from it?'

And out comes the sonic. "What are you, little buzzy friend? Sorry Smoke Alarm had to do that to you."

OOC: Ingenuity+Tech?
01:44, Today: The Traveller rolled 19 using 2d6+16 with rolls of 1,2.  2d6+Ingenuity 8+Technology 6+Sonic 2 - analyze bee drone.

This message was last edited by the player at 05:45, Sun 17 Mar 2019.

The flying bot is interesting, almost of a piece with the trees and other life that Trav has been studying.  It has a sort of a fluid design to it: its circuits and components seem more hand-crafted than assembled from parts, using analog rather than digital systems, even though the materials aren't out of the ordinary and the motors and electronics are perfectly ordinary in function.  It's not surprising to discover that the robot has a transmitter for relaying data from its video and audio pickups.

'It's an eyespy, isn't it?' Smoke Alarm wondered, outlooking closely as Traveller opened up the flying cleaner. 'It was an outlook in its hide-in tree.'

"Hm. Very old school. All analog, like something I'd make if I were on a particular kind of hobby kick. Whoever made these things probably now knows we've shot their toy down, we should go and apologize. Come on!"

In reply to The Guardian (msg # 9):

She looked around quickly, looking for something to throw at the device.

"'Ware sorcerous devices!"

OOC: Sorry about the shoddy post; just trying to get it out there and active again.

"Felicia" yelps and backs away from Kalath, stumbling and going down on her rump.  "Er?" she blurts.  The man comes to her side and holds an open palm out, as if to ward off Kalath, his eyes fixed the newcomer's spear.

OOC: We can certainly declare that there are rocks here, if you want.  They'd probably be of the same designed-looking nature as everything else, except for the people.

She frowned as she grabbed a rock, it seemed wrong but.. she hurled and threw it towards the device like-thing, hoping to bring it down - or at least make others see it.

OOC: 22:40, Today: Kalath rolled 17 using 2d6+8 with rolls of 6,3.  Co-ordination + marksmanship.

The stone is weirdly regular and smooth, but it certainly flies true enough.  It strikes the flying thing a glancing blow, and it veers out from cover.  It pitches down, and its rotors kick in, accelerating away from Kalath.

OOC: 23:04, Today: The Guardian, for the NPC Flybot, rolled 15 using 2d6+8 with rolls of 2,5.  Dodging Kalath: Awareness(4) + Coordination(4).

That'll be half Kalath's Strength damage.  The flybot is dinged but not downed.