"Oh baby."  Morin muttered as her rooted through the formerly locked chest.  "Oh BABY!  This wasn't a broom closet.  It was an armory!  Look at this stuff!"

Scooping up the collection of egg-shaped devices, Morin started to hand them out.  "Five grenades and five of us!  That math seems simple enough.  Okay, everybody take one and listen up:  To activate one of these things, you turn this dial here all the way to the end, then press the button in the middle.  About three to six seconds later it'll blow up, bringing a world of hurt to anything within about 20' or so.  Like I said, they take a little while to go off, so you should be careful about throwing them at anything smart enough to get away from it.  These two stun-bangers here aren't going to do much collateral damage, but I wouldn't throw any of the other ones into any room that looks like it has anything valuable in it.  I'll take one of the bangers.  I am a pacifist, after all."  As usual with Morin, it was difficult to tell if that last comment was a joke or not.

"As for the rest...I dunno.  Someone could try putting the jumpsuit on if they want to try it out.  The gun...I don't know exactly what it does, but I know the right man to use it!  Here you go, Zorden.  It looks a bit sketchy, but it's probably more dangerous to whoever you point it at than it is to you.  Unless it's like, a healing gun or something.  Those...might exist?  But generally something that shape is gonna be designed to hurt people."

OOC: I vote we each take a grenade and use them as needed.  I'll take a banger.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:54, Fri 15 July 2022.

Synn accepted the device, examined it briefly, noting the button before sliding it into a pouch on her belt. "Do you know what the suit does? I like it. If you don't mind, I'll try it out and hope it doesn't eat me."

"Hell if I know. This all looks like junk me. Expensive junk, but junk nevertheless." Cain shrugs and takes the white cylinder, wondering what it is that it actually does.

I'm fine with taking one grenade and have no particular interest in the rest of this stuff.

"Useless Metal Things..."

 Cael mostly just stays out of the way and lets the group do what they will with this stuff. Cael is not stupid per-say, but is simple and would need someone to explain how something works and how it would help his normal methodology before he would care.

Zorden accepted the items gingerly.  He tucked away the grenade and then spent a few moments turning over the other weapon like device in his hands and giving it a good long look.  His inspection didn't yield much beyond he felt a bit more confident about knowing how to potentially trigger whatever it did, and likely which bit he needed to make sure was pointing away from himself when he did it.

"One man's junk is another man's death warrant when those bastards from the League come down on his head."  Zorden remarked in reply to Cain's sentiments.



OOC: Taking the cream colored grenade, and the pistol

Morin rolled his eyes slightly at the response from his compatriots.  Not for the first time, he suppressed his bafflement at the way the larger races saw the world.  How could they even get through the day living like they did, viewing the world around them with such...disinterest?  The gnome decided to let it go.  He was well aware that the bigguns had just as much difficulty understanding the gnomish way of looking at the world.

Handing off the jumpsuit to Synn, Morin left the closet to give her some privacy while she changed.  Out in the larger entrance room, he scratched his chin.  "What do you think, east next?  It looks like someone opened the north door and immediately got splattered, so maybe we're better off not doing the exact same thing they did."
This message was last edited by the player at 22:47, Wed 20 July 2022.

"Yeah."  Zorden said in agreement with Morin's suggestion.

"You wanna go first?"  He asked Cael.  "That card we gave you will work on doors with the brown color too."

Following the careful guidance of the others, Cael uses his black access card to unlock the brown-glowing panel to the east, turning it to a simple, unlit panel, and with another touch sends the adjacent doorway quickly receding into the ceiling above to reveal a plain 20' hallway with a door and unlocked panel on the east end and another unlocked panel and adjacent door immediately to the south. The brave, torch-wielding servant leads the way and continues to not find any traps.
Group 0 Map Updated.

After a few minutes, Synn came out to join the rest of the group. The full body suit was grey and dark with a thick collar, extra pockets and lots of padding. Her belt with her weapons and pouches hung on her hips and her pack was slung over her shoulders.

"Okay. I like this." She came out turning her arms over as she examined the sleeves. "It will probably offer more protection than the skirt anyway. So where are we going next?"

"Not sure."  Zorden replied to Synn.

"Since this is more hallways, I'm morbidly curious if the other door is a corpse in a closet, or even more hallways, complete with a bloody trail to follow and maybe what we're looking for at the end of it."  He elaborated, glancing towards the other door.

Cael practically grunts before stepping into the hallway and investigates the two sets of doors ahead.

00:16, Today: Cael, The Whirlwind rolled 17 using 1d20+5 with rolls of 12.  Perception.

In reply to Zorden (msg # 28):

"It could be, or not. But let's check these doors first at least."

OOC: The blood could also be a stay-away sign. Anyway, I'm thinking the closest door could lead to another room. Should we start there? If we get more corridors from here we can then reconsider our path.

Morin shrugged. "Eh, sure.  Let's try the closest door first, then go back to the bloodstain if there's nothing interesting."

With another tap of another door's grey panel, the door to the south hisses open and reveals ... another unremarkable hallway. This one curves slightly to match the walls of the previous room and has two shut doors, each with unlocked grey panels, flanking the southern corner. With this hall, same as the last, the brave unseen servant finds no traps as it thumps about with its torch.[Private to Cael, The Whirlwind; Cain: You hear a series of faint thumps, clicks, and taps coming from beyond the hall's other doors. They don't seem random, but rather like someone or something has been alerted to your approach by the servant's search.]
Group 0 Map Updated.

 Cael starts at the doors in the hall, hearing something. The big man looks like he is ready to fight as he drew his greatsword from his back and spoke in a growling grumble of an almost sentence.

 "Something... Coming."

"Yeah, something is definitely here. Maybe those murderous plant people?" Cain readies his bow in turn.

[Private to GM: Just to be clear, this sound, it's coming from the hall to to south that we just opened?]

upon hearing the warning,  Synn draws her pistol. Plant people? Of course there's plant people. And no doubt they're murderous plant people. After making sure her gun is loaded, she stands ready.

Zorden took a step back as well and looked towards the small hallway.

"Well, the doors should still be locked.  Unless whatever it is can open them."

"To be fair,  we've just been finding those keycards laying around.  I'm sure a vegepygmy could figure one out if it found one."  Morin replied easily.  He didn't have any real weapon of his own to ready like the others were, but he took up a position in the back and prepared himself for a fight as best he could.

[Private to Cain: The sound was through the doors to the south.] After some tense moments nothing seems to happen and the sounds heard by Cain and Cael die down.

After the long tense moment had passed, Morin raised a finger and pointed it at the door where the sound had been coming from, then raised the finger to his lips.  The meaning was clear: Maybe they could get the drop on whatever was in there, assuming the party hadn't already tipped them off by talking.

Zorden looked towards the blood marked door and wondered if that might be the better option now.

Still, he waited to see if anyone decided to follow whatever plan Morin seemed to have come up with based on the pantomime he was doing.

Cain shrugs and creeps up to the doors he judges the sounds were coming from. When the rest of the party indicates they are ready, he will try to open the doors.

Let's go with Morin's plan for now, what's the worst thing that could happen? Not sure which of the two doors the sounds were coming from though. The big double doors, or the smaller side doors?

08:02, Today: Cain rolled 29 using 1d20+9 with rolls of 20.  Stealth.

Morin quietly joined Cain in the hallway.  He stood behind the sneaky half-elf, leaving the other spot by the door itself empty for someone else to take a position.

15:37, Today: Morin Matzylford rolled 18 using 1d20+10 with rolls of 8.  Stealth .
This message was last edited by the player at 22:42, Fri 29 July 2022.

Cain and Morin creep into the hallway, leaving Zorden and the newcomers in the rear, and after quietly taking position Cain presses the grey panel beside the smaller door. The metal door quickly raises into the ceiling with a now-familiar hiss and reveals behind it a narrow hallway filled with a line of small humanoids with green-and-brown fibrous skin, vines and leaves in place of hair, and scraps of cloth and leather tied on like clothing. The nearest vegepygmy stands ready with claws bare while the one behind him holds a rudimentary longspear at the ready. The final vegepygmy is clearly larger than the others with impressive thews and wields a glowing hammer. They seem prepared for the door's opening--but not as prepared as the half-elf scoundrel and gnome.
Cael, Cain, and Morin win initiative and act first. The enemies do not see you, but were prepared for your approach so no surprise round.
Group 0 Map Updated.

18:57, Today: Dungeon Master rolled 21,15,21,10,9 using d20+5,d20+7,d20+9,d20+2,d20+7.  Initiative Cael, Cain, Morin, Synn, Zorden.

This message was last edited by the GM at 03:06, Wed 03 Aug 2022.