After Morin's missed lasso toss, Kalasha steps in and annihilates the skeleton flaying Cain. Zorden prepares the crossbow for another shot as he moves clear from his party's backs and Cain, buffered by Selsa's blessing, readies himself for the skeleton which soon advances into the light and vision of the others--but still too far to be an immediate threat. [Private to Cain: Still more skeletons are arrayed behind the last--one to the northeast and one to the southeast beyond the reach of the others' vision.]
New Round, Everyone may act.
Group 0 Map Updated.
The skeleton is still about 45 feet out and also hindered by the sands so will not reach you this round.

"Nah, it's just a scratch." Cain answers Morin, despite bleeding profusely. "And another to the south east. Kalasha, you feel like continuing your streak or should we withdraw for now?"

If we are heading back after this and buying a wand of CLW (something I'm all for), then that would a more cost effective way to heal up. And being injured gives Cain a reason to return to town in the first place.

Zorden readied to fire his borrowed weapon, but abstained for the moment as he waited for Kalasha's answer.  No sense in potentially wasting another bolt if they were going to try and not continue to press their luck.

Readying an attack action for if the visible skeleton closes to within 30ft

"Everyone start moving back.  We can push farther and investigate that light once we've healed and resupplied.  I will deal with any that approach as we withdraw, but if you see a shot, take it - it might mean one less to deal with next time."  Kalasha responded.  "It might be good if we got a sling or blunt ammunition for everyone who doesn't want to be on the front lines against these guys when we come back."

OOC: Move back as far as she can while remaining closest to the oncoming skeleton.

"Sure thing!" Morin agreed, moving back into the tunnel.

FULL: Double move into the tunnel.

"Works for me." Cain staggers back to the tunnel as well, blood leaking between his fingers as he is holding his hand over a wound.

Moving after Morin. Wish we had a chance to acquire some more loot, but buying that wand will have to do for now.

Zorden displayed his agreement with Kalasha's plan by backing up into the tunnel as well, keeping the business end of the crossbow pointed towards the desert cavern just in case.

As the party begins to file back into the cave, the skeleton continues to advance on them slowed by neither weighty armor nor the logistics of forming a single-file line and another skeleton enters into the light of the abandoned servant and its torch. [Private to Cain: Cain can see in furthest reaches of the dim light another three skeletons closing in.]
New Round
Group 0 map updated.

Zorden kept the crossbow ready but otherwise devoted his attention to the orderly shuffling through the rocky passage that was occuring.

Continuing to move

Calling the servant back to him, Morin made it back to the steel-floored nozzle room.  He stepped to one side of the entrance, leaving space for his quicker companions to keep moving.

MOVE: Order servant to follow 10' behind Morin.
MOVE: Move 15' west.

"Damn, there's another three behind those." Cain warns as he follows through the tunnel.

That's 5 of them. If they keep coming after us, we might wish to make a stand where they can only get to us one at a time.

Kalasha kept moving back, her eyes always on the incoming threat(s) she could see and her hand clutching her greatsword, ready to grind another skeleton to powder.

The party continues fleeing from the coming skeleton horde, and once all are into the stone cave and metal rooms, the muffled sound of rattling bones slows. Cain and Sesla stumble about in the pitch black as Morin's servant struggles to keep up, but for now at least the skeletons seem to have given up the chase.
Combat over. 2 Skeletons defeated; 100 XP.
Group 0 Map Updated

"Well, that's something."  Zorden remarked at the fact the skeletons seemed to have given up the chase.

He looked about warily in case some other thing has snuck up behind them as he waited for the others to regroup.

Kalasha kept to the back until she was certain the skeletons were not still pursuing.  "Do we think the remaining robot bits might be worth something if we hauled it out?"  She asked anyone who might know more about such advanced technologies.

"I don't know."  Morin replied.  "I don't think so...but I don't know.  I can't really make heads or tails of it.  It might even be dangerous to take that thing underwater.  I hear robots like that tend to be powered with lightning energy, and even a dead one can shock you if you're too careless with the corpse.  Maybe we could ask around, see if anyone wants to buy a dead robot?  Or some alien coral.  Or a tentacle beast in alien coral."

"One thing we should bring back is that dead guy the frogman was eating.  The locals might appreciate it if they can get him buried before he gets too ripe."
This message was last edited by the player at 02:55, Fri 28 Jan 2022.

"Everything like it has value, to the right buyer."  Zorden commented.  "If it weren't the Technic League wouldn't be in the position it is, and do what it does to control it all."  The emphasis he puts on that word makes his distaste quite obvious.

"Morin is correct though.  Unless you understand it, such things can be dangerous.  Still, it may be worth a try.  We can always drag it back to the water, and then figure out a way to get it out without potentially killing ourselves later."

Kalasha went to where they had felled the technology golem and began trying to lug it to the entrance.  "Like tying the rope to it before we leave then pulling it out after us?"  She suggested.

"Assuming it's not too heavy to drag through the muck along the bottom, yeah I reasoned that would be the easiest way too if it works."  Zorden said in agreement.

Cain is in bad enough shape that he doesn't argue about the merits of dragging back a broken machine and a body with no face. "Going to need some healing when we get back. Maybe we should invest those coins the skulks gave us towards that."

Kalahari looked at Cain with concern as she hauled on the golem.  "I believe we were all in agreement about that already."  She said.

Deciding to make their way back post haste, Kalasha grabs a hold of the wrecked metal guardian and begins to drag it along, scraping and screeching along the metal floors. As the party leaves the metal structure and begins to drop down to the cave floor of the Skulk settlement, a pair of green orbs glow within the dark cave at the far end of the metal rooms, watching...

The skulks look on in bemusement as the party makes their way through, dragging their weighty metal prize, but keep their distance. The pass through the winding tunnels of the caves is troublesome--hard edges of the machine's extremities seem to have a habit of catching on the uneven rock. At the frog-beast's lair Kalasha retrieves a blanket and rope from her bag and wraps and ties what remains of the fallen adventurer's body--most of the meat on its flank and skin have been chewed away as well as the liver and kidneys dug out leaving loose, shredded, and disintegrating bits of flesh scattered about and slowly washing down the spring along with whatever other filth a decaying body excretes.

Then, avoiding the nest of slimes, the party begins the long process of navigating the corpses--one of bulky metal and the other of water-logged, putrid flesh--through the tight, precarious pass clogged by stalagmites. And that was the easier of the challenges as next both bodies must be shoved and pulled through the narrow underwater tunnel which finally leads to fresh air--or as fresh as can be expected in a city who's means of waste disposal has been out of service for a week. The party emerges from the rancid pond with the bodies in tow exhausted and sickened from the ordeal and their open wounds stinging badly from whatever is in this water.

After a few minutes of resting and vomiting, a pair of guards from the nearby garrison come to meet them. One seems a bit overcome by the stench of the pond and the sight of the vomit, but the other sticks to business--although he doesn't attempt to get any closer than he needs to in order to be heard--"It's good to see you're all back! Do you have a report for the council?" He then looks to the wrapped body of the half-eaten man and asks hesitantly, "That's not ... Councilor Baine, is it?"

Foul water did nothing to improve the condition of Cain's wounds, or his temper. "No, that's just the body of yet another fool our wise leaders sent down that death trap with nothing more than a promise of a handful of coins. You are welcome to it, plenty more of them down there. As for a report to the council, we'll give one when we have something to report, besides them not paying us enough for this. For now, we need rest and resupply before continuing."

So, we dump the dead body on the guards, sell the robot somewhere, meet our new party member, buy a wand of CLW, and rest to recover our spells? Anything else?

Meanwhile, Morin's manic cheer continued to be undaunted even after swimming through industrial waste again.  "Oh, my companion is too modest, we've got tons to report!  I'd be glad to spin a tale of our exciting discoveries and continuing heroism for the council.  And I'll be doing the same for anyone else who cares to hear, later on at the Copper Coin!"

Morin had a lot planned for the evening.  First, a report to the council.  He'd go over everything that had happened, but his main concern would be discussing the skulks under torch, and the escaped gremlin that might be hiding somewhere in town.  As it was, the party was content to leave the skulks be, but maybe the town council had some business they wished to conduct with the cave-people.  Or maybe they would be willing to offer some kind of reward to anyone willing to bring them to justice for the murder of Parda Garr and the attempted murder of Khonnir Baine.

After that was the shopping.  Buying a healing wand would be very useful, but not very interesting.  The real fun would come from trying to sell the robot.  Even if nobody had a use for it, maybe they could sell it as a curiosity, or convince someone that it might be valuable later, to a more skilled technologist.

After that, came the real work: going to a bar and telling a bunch of wildly exaggerated stories about how great the party was.  That would take up most of his night, but Morin feared there was no way around it.  After all, how could you be a real hero if nobody knew how heroic you were?  Of course, even in his own telling, it was Cain, Kalasha, and Zorden who he would frame as the heroes, with Morin taking the role of comic-relief sidekick.
This message was last edited by the player at 17:13, Sat 29 Jan 2022.

Zorden let the others talk to the guards while he worked on clearing the rest of the no doubt poisonous water from his lungs.

He realized he didn't get much of a description of the man they were looking for when he was at the town hall, so he was relieved to hear the corpse was someone else.  Otherwise it would have been a lot of trouble they'd gone through for nothing.

OOC: Agreed.  There's a few spots the robot might sell, or maybe we could include it as barter for the wand.  If all else fails there's a junk dealer in town who will probably buy it.

Otherwise Zorden's agenda is getting cleaned up, fixing his weapon, and resting up.