(Continued from the last comment thread)
Nekshi licks her lips nervously and activates the comm link through Zobog (in Ehrkiss),"This is training Cadet Solanei with supply, I have appropriated this robot from our fallen comrades to appraise you of the situation concerning the attackers. Although I am sorely wounded and frightened, I will continue to broadcast in the hopes you may gain the upper-hand tactically and rescue both our honor and my life. #cough#cough!"
Nekshi looks at Granite and shrugs.
There is an awkward pause.
"I don't know what you just said," says Pru quietly, "but I really hope you know what you're doing!"
Then, from both the tunnel ahead and at least two party members' wristers, a deep belly laugh can be heard.
There is an abrupt spate of clicks and hums as various firearm safeties are deactivated all over the party.
"Wait!" hisses Bina.
A deep voice calls out a hearty line in Ehrkiss punctuated with another laugh.
"What did he say?" demands Betham.
"He thinks Nekshi is a guard's sex toy or something," replies the disgraced priestess. "He thinks it's a joke!"
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Nekshi reddens quite dramatically.
Comm off, to Pru..
"So you can read him from here? That might give me an advantage if you can convey that to me in real time. If we can accurately gauge his emotional responses to my dialog, we might have a chance."
Comm on, in Ehrkiss,
"Yes, but I am a broken toy now. My turreted helmed lover lays burned and bloodied by the invaders. I see no sign of the female guard. I suspect treachery, for she was jealous of our love and my innocence and beauty."
Nekshi cuts the comm and winces.
Nekshi turns the comm back on guiltily, "#cough#cough!"
(I'm going to assume you meant Bina rather than Pru.)
Bina says, "There are two of them. One has bought it. The other is a little more suspicious, but not yet alarmed."
Nekshi realizes to her consternation, that the turreted helm belonged to the female and not the male guard, Gothryt(?)!
She nods to Bina, and tries the comm again, "With my lover and protector now dead, I have no one...even the aliens have left. They cared not for the exquisite armor Golthryt wore, nor his well maintained and expensive weapons and never found his hidden stashes of jewels. They only called out for vengeance towards the Crimson Order and left me to die, alone...alone!"
Nekshi rolls her eyes and mimes sticking her finger down her throat.
There is another pause.
"Marbaisenis?" says the native-sounding voice with confusion and/or disappointment. "Afma...dern insi yAntic alemsenis varbisic ic ma...?"
"Marbaisenis dekyalas?" puts in the non-native-sounding voice a bit more edgily. "Cinic damsiu?"
"He's getting suspicious," whispers Bina, her eyes closed tight.
Granite shudders at the thought of Nekshi as a sex toy, and turns her attention to the tunnel where Zobog was sent, fingering her pistol.
"Oh great, I hope it's the healthy kind of suspicion. I'll try to goad them into a rescue, but they'll be on their guard. Still, if we can get them out of their bunkers or whatever they're behind, we might have a better chance. Any quick ideas before I commit?" (Like she hasn't commited already)
Granite stretches a leg off to the side. "Either way, I plan on popping a cap in their collective ass. It'd be best if they come to us, I think."
Nekshi thumbs the comm (in Ehrkiss),"We were set upon by foul aliens and Hergoth witches mere minutes ago. My love fought bravely, but now he lays like a broken doll at my side. They have left, and I transmit to you, injured though I am. I only wish to see a friendly face before I pass beyond the veil..."
There is another pause.
"HekkramenAs Hergothtiulis?" echoes the native-sounding voice somewhat incredulously. "Dou...nislat...?"
Bina inhales sharply.
Once again arguing can be heard from the chamber.
Mon'Fargret continued to hold the rune paper out until it became clear that the conversation had gone in some other direction. Feeling a bit spacy from all the recent action, he looked like a statue for a few seconds until he finally shook his head and stowed the paper back in its hiding place.
He took in the scene with little comment listening to the exchanges and watching the robot float down the passage.
After a lengthy pause, he shrugs and starts walking down the hall after the robot. His pistol is drawn and hidden behind his back.
(Considering the lack of sleep everyone in the party has had to deal with, one couldn't really blame M'F for spacing out.)
As Mon'Fargret moves forward down the tunnel, Ham and Lirassa fall in behind him.
(Snabbie, I need an ALT roll from you.)
Nekshi will call out to MF's retreating backside. "Stay out of sight, it's supposed to be an ambush."
To Bina, "Sorry about the witch thing, I only have so many buttons to push, and that one seems to be pretty hot."
"Except that the Ehrlathagi in there respects the Priesthood," retorts Bina. "I should be flattered. His pal does not."
Nice...A 1.
Mon'Fargret speaks from behind the box in Yangae, "Since we outnumber
you by quite a lot, I was hoping we could have a chat. Sort of lay our
leaves out to dry in the light as they say. What do you say?"
Ham and Lirassa take positions on either side of the tunnel, weapons at the ready.
There is a bit of clattering in the chamber, and then the Ehrlathagi-sounding guard says in heavily-accented Yangae, "Uh...where are you going?"
The other guard starts muttering darkly in Ehrkiss.
"So, can I come out without getting vaporized? We are on a bit of a schedule."
The Ehrlathagi guard shrugs. "Don't give me a reason to shoot you, and I won't! Are you going up or across?"
The other guard mutters something again, and the Ehrlathagi hushes him curtly.
[Good question. Would it be hard to give us a map update?]
[I'm on it. Give me a bit...]
[For the time being at least, the other members of the party besides Mon'Fargret, Ham, and Lirassa are still further up the tunnel. Betham and Pru would be just off the edge of the image. I went ahead and included everyone to show relative positions.]
Granite will continue down the tunnel to get closer to where Mon'Fargret is at, just in case things get messy.
"Fair enough," Mon'Fargret replies as he holsters his pistol, palms a rune paper, and emerges from his hidey hole with his hands held out and away from his body.
"If we aren't turned around, I think we are headed across."
He switches to Hergoth, "Is this language a better one to use?"
"Was that a joke?" asks the Ehrlathagi in Yangae. He looks like he's not sure whether to raise his weapon or not. "Um...have you got the key?"
"I think this will suffice," replies Mon'Fargret and holds out the rune so both can see. "Wait, that may be the other key."
His other hand moves slowly back towards his holster.
If one screams, he will use the confusion to grab the weapon of the other one.
The Ehrlathagi guard (who is at least fifteen feet away behind a wall of boxes) mutters something in Ehrkiss and then, in Yangae, says, "That's not..."
The rune paper flickers as if sparks of electricity were playing about it, and the rune chars.
The other guard makes a weird noise that is part scream and part attempt to say something that comes out as gurgling gibberish and collapses.
The Ehrlathagi repeats his first uttering in Ehrkiss, this time a bit louder and edgier. He raises his weapon slightly higher but doesn't really point it at anything.
[My are moving computers all over the house, so no access to my character sheet. I will assume M'F does not speak Ehrkiss.]
Mon'Fargret say to the Erlagathi guard, "Do you speak Yangae? Your partner was under the influence of mind control."
[I kep leavng out words leters. Not sre wy.]
(Actually, the Ehrlathagi guard has already spoken Yangae to Mon'Fargret, albeit not very well. And no, M'F doesn't speak Ehrkiss.)
"Buaciu malAnfi!" barks the guard, backing away and moving his gun to something a bit more like an aimed position. He stumbles over the base of the survival pod and then does an amusing dance to keep his footing, noisily kicking empty cans and bottles aside. "Alemsenis damisaic asiua ninumuei!!" he shrieks.
"TAg!" screams Lirassa. Then she mutters to herself and yells, "TAgys!" Then she glances over at Ham and says something in Brekka which her telepathic translator renders as something like, "Fucking dead languages...," before trying, "Taugsiu!"
Zeton watches intently as the events play out. Turing to Nekshi he asks, "What is Lirassa trying to do? What are the guards saying? If you can help out, you'd better speak up, now!"
Zeton attempts to move Zobog so that it can be used as a projectile to crash into one of the guards should they start to shoot at Mon'Fargret. (If Zobog is equipped with any weapons, Zeton will use those first before using Zobog to attack the guards. However, Zeton will not attack until the guards fire first.)
"TaugSIN!!!" calls a musical-sounding voice from the southwest passageway.
On hearing the voice from behind him, the guard panics and squeezes off a burst from his gun, which is apparently a gauss weapon of some kind. His fire is totally wild, and it's uncertain who or what he was trying to shoot at.
(I'm going to assume Zeton is going to send Zobog accelerating toward him.)
Upon hearing the gun fire, Zeton will send Zobog at the guard who did the shooting to try and knock him to the ground. Zeton will try to recover Zobog as quickly as possible to get it out of harms way as well as act as a scout, should the other guard try to run for cover and hide.
[Granite, I think things just got "messy", be careful!]
Responding to Zeton, "The guard says that he doesn't get paid enough for this and Lirassa is saying something about a key, although her verb form is wrong. I think the guard is frightened and emotionally overwhelmed, and therefore may not respond to logical demands."
Granite will move to take cover behind that green box where Mon'Fargret is on the map. I don't believe Mon'Fargret moved, so Granite will just position behind him, and keep her head down. If the firing dies down, she's going to peek around the box to see if she can get a bead on either guard.
Nekshi says over the party comm, "Try to stun him if it's not too much risk. He is definitely not worth killing."
Mon'Fargret will aim his pistol at the rifle arm and shoot if it swings his (or the party's) way.
"Calm! Calm!" he says in Yangae. (He also sends it telepathically)
(The non-Ehrlathagi guard is currently convulsing on the floor. See the updated pic.)
The Ehrlathagi guard squeezes off another burst in a seemingly random direction as Zobog buzzes toward him, Nekshi rambling something in Ehrkiss through its speaker.
Then the guard simply plops onto the floor behind his wall of boxes and yells, "Axei! Damibehartic! Cinfi dasuei!"
(The voice the party heard definitely came from the southwest passage.)
"Are you friends of Kuluf?" asks the voice in the other passage in Yangae.
Upon hearing the question from the other passage, Zeton will stop Zobog from attacking and uses its camera to make sure the guard is out of commission and not trying some sort of ruse to fool the party. If all looks fine, Zeton will use Zobog to scout the SW passage using Zobog's mic to communicate, "Kuluf is a friend, but who are you?"
Mon'Fargret chances a step or two past the boxes he is hiding behind swiveling his head rapidly between the SW corridor, the convulsing guard, and the befuddled guard. Pistol drawn and pointed towards Mr. Befuddled.
(Zobog failed to make contact during its first pass, so I assume it's now circling around.)
The befuddled Ehrlathagi guard is just sitting on the floor holding his gun in a ready position and rocking back and forth.
Zobog's sensors show that there are two figures hiding in the southwest passage. One is obviously a Farbett. The other is a smallish humanoid.
Since it looks like the two guards are out for the count, Zeton will bring Zobog around and use it to communicate with the new arrivals. "We are friends of Kuluf, have you seen him recently?"
There is a pause, and the two figures in the passageway can be seen to converse quietly between themselves. Then the smallish humanoid replies, "Our business is our own, but Kuluf told us to expect you. He says we are 'on the same path,' or something like that."
Mon'Fargret continues forward, mainly keeping an eye on Mr. Befuddled but looking towards the other two possible threats as well.
He will approach the non-Erlagathi guard while replying to the new people, "We could certainly use the help."
As Mon'Fargret approaches the non-Ehrlathagi guard, the latter (apparently...hard to tell with a polarized visor) looks back at him, lets out a strange sort of grunt, and then starts to scoot away backward as if he were drunk.
Lirassa comes into the room holding up her wrister.
"Look, you dopes!" she says in Yangae. "The key!"
Neither of the guards acknowledges her in any way.
Zeton gives Zobog new instructions once he realizes the guards are incapacitated and the two newcomers are not going to attack. Zeton has Zobog hover overhead with any passive scanning equipment operating to alert Zeton of anyone else approaching and then Zeton will make his way into the supply node.
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