Earlier....

Rebekah watches the datapad exchange hands, narrowing her eyes. She could certainly have imprinted her data, but she wonders whether the imprint would show the woman or the wild beast? Thankfully, Coralian's quick thinking had spared them the inquisition sure to follow. She leaves, hiding her distaste at Dr. Cole's work—although at least he seemed to care more for the animals than most researchers she'd met.

Easy to look at them like objects until you are one.

Now
Bekah sits uncomfortable in a corner of the makeshift shelter. Blue is hunched over her, largely blocking the rain—the tyrannosaur occasionally shakes herself, sprinkling her human and dinosaur companions. Fortunately, Blue loves the rain. For Rebekah, it's just another way to mask the approach of danger. She spent a long time in a place where rain fell constantly, and then not at all, and sideways, and backwards, and....

She closes her eyes and tries to catch some rest. Unfortunately, the sound that permeates her dreams soon disturbs her slumber, and she joins the others in looking for trouble. Rebekah gets to her feet, placing a hand on Blue's snout as a low growl rumbles out of the young tyrannosaur's throat.

Whatever this new creature is, it's unnatural, but is it controlled by someone? Perhaps someone whose work they had disrupted? Bek tenses, prepared to face whatever threat the machine-thing may pose.
This message was last edited by the player at 08:28, Fri 20 Nov 2020.

"More?" as loudly as she dares, hoping the sound reaches the ears of her companions and is swallowed by the rain beyond them.

"I hope it's just some echo." answers Hemon to himself without real convictions. Still, he checks that Tap is far from the source of the noise. There's no question for him to fly away under this weather and on the ground, he is an easy prey.

Instinctively, the young man moves closer to his dino to be able to protect him more efficiently if needed and he makes sure his small Nerezza is safe as well.

Watching the cyborg creature he calls out, "Another lab grown monstrosity."

Roam stands between the thing and Dr. Lewis, raising his laser and aiming at its face.  Any threatening move in their direction and it gets a blast of charged protons.

The creature makes a peculiar hiss, sounding nothing so much as a release of steam, and abruptly scuttles away at incredible speed, leaving behind a hole in the ground.  It circles to the east and away, and for long moments, nothing else is heard.  Then two more clicks echo, followed by the rapid return of the same creature, plus its twin.  The two come even with the hole, then turn to face the shelter.  The pointed tips of their bodies begin to glow a dull red, and you can see steam and hear a sizzle as the raindrops hit them...

Coralian darts off to the left, away from the rest of the group, circling around so she's at an oblique angle to the creatures.  She whistles to summon Ajax, all the while keeping her taut bow trained on the nearest monstrosity.  She'd maintain a distance of at least 15 feet from the intruders.

Ajax, however, seems to think his place is right where he is, staring down the machines and snorting a challenge.


OOC: so if the party is at 9 o'clock and the centibots are in the center, Coralian is now at about 1 o'clock.

Ajax stands his ground as the creatures glow more brightly, steam coming thickly from them.  Roam, never one to let an enemy get the first blow, fires off his laser, hitting one squarely and making it shriek, discharging a blast of heat into the air instead of at the campsite.  The other wastes no time, discharging its own searing, super-heated air.  Ajax's armor protects him from the worst of it , and Hemon's protective pose over his dinos keeps them from harm, as does Rebekah's own wariness.  Roam, however, left himself open and feels the heat blast him hard!

The wounded one scuttles a little to the side, shaking its forward segment, while the attacking one makes a series of sharp grunts, swaying from side to side as if trying to determine which foe to attack first...

Coralian, perhaps thrown off by the thrashing and steam (or just concern for Ajax) looses an arrow that flies wide as she screams in frustration.
This message was last edited by the player at 12:38, Tue 08 Dec 2020.

Of all times to wish I could change!

She also is lacking in the way of guns, preferring more primitive weaponry instead. However, Rebekah recalls the perfect cypher for this situation! First, she will study the threat, analyzing its movements, potential weak points, and behaviors.

"Blue! Protect the doctor." The tyrannosaur snuffles as she moves swings her body to protect their guest.

OOC
• Understanding: Will use Understanding on the creature. Observe or study it as an action, gain an asset on the next interaction.
• Blue: I rolled a 9, so I think I can command Blue properly this turn?
This message was last edited by the player at 23:47, Tue 08 Dec 2020.

Not happy with the attack against his companions, Hemon fires an arrow at the closest creature. But too concerned by his dino friends, the arrow flies lose.

Coralian and Hemon's arrows go wide, while Ajax stands his ground.  Tap shrieks and keeps trying to look around Hemon, while Rebekah takes her time to study the armored insect-like creatures.  Blue stands in front of Dr. Lewis, snarling at the things, while the doctor leans just enough around Blue to fire off an arrow at the one who had blasted Roam with heat.  It hits squarely, making it shake itself from side to side to try to shake it off.  The arrow begins to smolder from the heat of the creature's skin!

Dr. Lewis whistles to Foozle, but the over-eager struthiomimus trips over his own feet and goes into a muddy somersault, ending up sitting on his tail and clearly wondering what just happened.

Roam misses another shot with his laser, but with a click to Tarla, his raptor dashes and slashes her claws at their attacker, adding to the damage from Dr. Lewis' arrow.

The wounded one swings around to Tarla, but misses her cleanly, while the other one charges at Blue.  But with the rain, even all of its feet can't keep it from slipping, and its pointed head blunts against Blue's hide without doing any harm, though its pointed end continues to grow redder and glow brighter and brighter...

Coralian, incensed at the attack on Ajax and frustrated by her wide shot, drops her bow, hefts her axe, and launches herself at the offending machine-thing.

As the creatures step closer, Hemin fires another arrow at the most threatening one. This time, he assures himself a steadier aim.

Coralian's cypher and her anger combine into a devastating blow that nearly carves the wounded creature in twain, dropping it to the muddy ground.  Its pointed end sizzles where the rain hits it, sending up small bursts of steam.

Hemon focuses his attack on the remaining foe, his arrow striking true.  Dr. Lewis' arrow flies just over the creature's head.  However, Roam refocuses his aim with his rifle and rips off a shot that strikes it dead center on its sizzlingly bright end.  It stops in its tracks as Rebekah and Blue swoop in, Rebekah's strike a minor blow for Blue's finishing blow of a hard crunch to the midsection.

The creature drops, but the bright, hot end of it doesn't start to die down.  In fact, it erupts into a blinding burst of heat and light!

OOC: Everyone take 2 damage from the explosion, and also gains 1XP for the mass GM intrusion.

Rebekah collapses back into the mud, away from the explosion, but it's too late to avoid some searing and blisters. Growling, she clambers up out of the mud to check on Blue. "You okay, girl?" She pats the young tyrannosaur's flanks, still steaming from the explosion. "Yeah, I know you're tougher than that." Bekah looks at the still-sizzling remains of the creature. So am I.

"But where did you come from?" Rebekah begins looking around for clues as to the creatures' origins.

Roam picks himself up off the ground.  He quickly scans around making sure there is no other impending threats.
"That is likely to draw unwanted attention.  Is everyone ok?"

He looks directly at Dr. Lewis when he asks.
His hands quickly check his laser to make sure nothing is broken and wipe mud from the emitter lense.  It quickly finds its way back to his carrying case and Roam whistles Tarla over to check her.  Minor injuries he rests his forehead against her eye ridge and pats her neck.

"We can either head back to the SATI facility and hold up, or I can follow this things tracks to see where it came from."

Heaving a few last breaths of rage out, Coralian is able to calm herself and turn her attention to Ajax.  "Are you ok, buddy?"  She scours him for injuries that may need tending, versus just time to heal.

"Anyone ever see anything like those before?"

As the thing explodes, Hemon instinctively turns his back toward the explosion to protect his Nerezza with his body. When he feels that everything's over, he quickly reachs Tap to check if the Tapejara is going well. Once he is sure everything is fine, he moves toward Rebekah. "You good, Bek?"

He then looks at Coralian. "Nope. Never seen something like that before." And, looking at Roam, he adds: "If the weather calms down, I could help you from the sky."

Rebekah begins to look around for any hints at to where these creatures may have come from.  While they didn't leave much in the way of tracks on the surface, and their seeming underground mode of travel having precluded most tracks that way anyway, with an assistance from a light she can see that the tunnels curve off to the northwest before ascending to their ambush point here.

Also, the creatures look like their flesh is well-knitted to the cybernetic parts that form their nosecones, but underneath the cones you can see living eyes through glass-covered apertures, and the metal, insectile legs are attaching at points were more saurian legs would have emerged.  If you had to take a guess, if they had grown up "normally" (and creatures this fully integrated must have been modified since birth or even before) they would resemble the large crocodilian creatures that haunt the banks of the Totorix Run and sometimes snatch people from boats.



"A bit.  A sort.  Kind of.  Mostly," Dr. Lewis says, bow still in her hand as she looks Foozle over for any injury.  "But we're a few hours away from Dr. Cole's facility, and I don't think I want to travel that far in the dark, do you?"

She seems shaken, but clearly is willing to follow Roam's lead when it comes to moving about the wilds.



"Nothing in particular, though the hide looks more saurian aside from the cybernetics and grafts.  I can look closer... if I can get more light?" Dr. Lewis says, looking rather pale.

OOC: Ajax is down 3 Health, Roam is down a total of 2 (I didn't take his Armor into consideration with the attacks on him before).  Everyone else is also down 2, dinos included, but please remember to take damage off for any Armor you or your dinosaurs have.
 Hemon, if you wanted to protect your Nerezza you can take 2 (instead of 1 because of your Armor) to shield them.

"Especially given the weather, I'd prefer to rest until daylight.  That'll give us a chance to examine those things in the light, too."

Coralian continues to tend to Ajax's wounds, muttering to him sweetly as she does so.  She is surprisingly gentle, given the display of utter brutality she displayed barely a few minutes ago.

"I agree with Coral," Rebekah says, nodding absently. She pats Blue's snout as the tyrannosaur snuffles her; Blue's hide is still smoking a bit, but the tyrannosaur is only singed and scratched a little, and bears her (minor) wound with pride. Bek smiles. "The great predator of the savannah, you are. Queen of the jungle!"

Blue lifts her nose a little as a regal gesture.

"Many theropods are nocturnally active," Rebekah says, turning to her comrades. "At night, our danger grows. We might wander into an ambush, into nesting territory, and we risk losing precious signs of these trails. Hemon, Coral, are you able to help us follow these tracks by daylight?"

Asking the question, Rebekah checks the chronometer on the thick band on her wrist.

Looking at Tap to be sure he could fly without problems, Hemon then turn toward Rebekah. "Yeah, I could help better at day from the sky. Not to brag but I'm quite good at noticing small details." he says with a smile. "So following tracks should be easy."

He then takes a few seconds and looks at the others. "I agree with Coralian and Rebekah. We will have a better time keeping this position for the night, and staying aware or studying the creature bodies. Then benefit from the day light to search where this creature came from."

"Trying to find tracks at night in the rain is far more effort than the likely gains.  And if they tunneled the whole way, it won't matter when we look for tracks.  Did you see the way they came up out of the ground?"

Coralian is still doing her best to tend to Ajax as she talks.

But they would have disturbed the ground as they past through. That would leave its own version of a track that I should be able to follow. That’s what I do. Any type of rain will clear it out very fast though.

It’s a shame that we have to mess up these regal creatures with all this nasty cyberware and ruin nature’s creations.

Roam looked at the dinos scattered about the clearing.

Dr. Lewis seems relieved that they aren't going anywhere else tonight, and considers the dinosaurs for a moment.  She closes her eyes, and then after a moment her skin begins to glow with its own bioluminescence. Clearly she's just activated a cypher of her own.  She begins to examine the fallen creatures as well as she can with the rainfall.  "I think these creatures must have been modified very early.  Shortly after hatching, possibly with some tinkering beforehand.  The integration is fairly clean, and I don't see a lot of repeated scar tissue from new or badly-applied implants, so either they were cared for or are just very robust.  Probably cared for, as these kinds of mods are... expensive..." she says, trailing off at the end.  She shakes herself and then goes to help reinforce their shelter for the night, refill water containers, and help anyone else with their dinos.

Between Roam and Hemon, they can see the direction the tunnels go without much difficulty.  The creatures were large enough that the two trackers could choose to use the tunnels themselves (albeit by crawling or at least crouching) or they could take the surface road to get a better fix on their direction.  But in the dark, and the rain, even following a fairly obvious track will have some challenges.

OOC: You can use the Heal skill to heal both yourselves and your dinos if you have it.  The DT would be the amount you want to heal, so if you want to heal 3 health/hit points, you need to hit a DT of 3 (9 on a d20).  I believe you only get one chance a day for that kind of heal check.

Roam and Hemon, if you are going to track, I will need a DT 5 tracking roll if on the surface, DT 3 if you choose to crawl in the tunnels.