The Ark::: A RPG Session Continues: St George's Guardsmen arrive!

Xephos follows suit, staying by Grexas' side as he creeps silently backwards ( move silently 18 + 9 = 27)

The two men slowly back away from the south corner. The sniffing sound continues for a second or two. then, out of the hole on the ceiling, they did see the head of the thing in the tunnel start to come out of its lair.

At first, slowly, they could see a shape like the snout of a black wolf, about three or four times the size nature intended them to be, anyway. Then, an inch at a time, they could make out the fangs, each one the size of a baby's arm. Their attention was drawn after to the eyes; red glowing eyes like coals from Gehenna.

When the body came out, that is when the surprise came.

it had a shaggy, almost mammal like body, but it moved on eight legs. All of which were covered in some sort of exo skeleton, with spikes and thick black hair covering it.

The movement was very slow, and the thing bobbed up and down, as a spider does when frolicking on its web.

They both stopped breathing for fear the creature could heard them, and they huddled behind one of the cages looking in amazement at the horrible thing that slowly started to crawl through the ceiling, slowly, surveying its territory. The horrible sniffing sound could still be heard.

Suddenly, the thing in the ceiling stopped, and opened up its jaws to intone the most chilling howl. it sounded long, and dessperate.

Both Grexas ans Xephos could see the creature also wore a metal collar with blinking lights in it; and they wondered how much time they had before the thing came down on them, raining certain death from above.

Grexas looks to the still closed door to his left. He begins to make his way over there rolled 14+2=16 move silently. Once he arrives at the door he examines it, hoping it is like the door they had just come through. rolled 19 search check

Xephos follows Grexas at a distance, watching his back (move silently 18 + 9 = 27), katana drawn and pistol in hand, he looks for any other escapes (spot roll 17 + 2 = 19)

 

 

The two mutants slowly make their way to the door in the northwest corner, always keeping an eye on the wolf monstruosity on the ceiling; both of them can see the thing recoilt its numerous powerful legs as the howling it did starts to wane. Then it just sits still.
Grexas reaches the door and starts searching it with haste. He discovers that the round handle in the middle of it is loose and actually does not open the door at all, a closer look shows wiring and an electronic lock. The lock is wired to both a numeric keypad with a little screen on it, and to several bars of whitish soft bricks of some plastic material.
Xephos stops a few paces from the door and surveys the room once more. The only other exits he can spot are either the door from which they came in, and the tunnel in the southern wall, near to the ceiling, from which the wolf-spider crawled out of. A second look to the door they came in reveals several beams of white searchlights. It appears that the St. George's guards finally found the way the fugitives escaped, and are giving pursuit!!

Xephos slowly drops to the floor and lies on his belly "Make no sudden moves, be silent and dont attract attention, we have 2 problems, and they could get rid of eachother" Xephos is virtually invisible with his dark leather wings around him (hide roll 17 + 4 = 21) (move silently roll 19 + 9 = 28)

Grexas creeps over to where Xephos is hiding and lays down next to him. "You better hope they get here before that thing finds us." He whispers. He pulls out a grenade just in case, before watching the approaching lights. rolled 5+2=7 hide, and 15+2=17 move silently.

As Grexas prepares a grenade , the metal of the device both makes a soft clanking sound and reflects a bit of light from the searchlights that ar now coming in to the room.
The wolf on the ceiling lets out a wild howl of rage and crawls its way to where it thinks it saw a tiny spot of white light.
At the easternmost door, four guards step in to the room at once, two of them standing up, swinging a very large shotgun each, with searchlights attached to its nozzle; the other two come in low, kneeling and searching the room with what appears to be some sort of assault rifles that the heroes have never seen before.
One of the guards shouts out "You there, in the corner by the door, step out with your arms up!". He then pumps his shotgun.
On the ceiling, the creature stars crawling faster until it seems like a natural wolf running through the trees in four, not eight legs. One of the guards raises his rifle and screams out "Jeeez... almightyyyy, what in the world is that thing!" then prepares to fire at it. another guard follows suit.
The two gurds with the strange rifles, however, continue to aim its searchlights at Grexas. "Step outside you there, stop your creature and bring out the rest of your friends or we will kill only you and fin the rest of them anyway!"
On the ceiling, the wolf is about 20 ft from the guards in front of them and closing. By the door, Grexas and Xephos, who apparently has not been noticed, are about 50 ft from the guards.
A Strange almost howling like sound can be heard starting to go off on the other side of the iron door by Grexas.

Grexas sighs and stands up, walking from behind the cages hands above his head. "Alright you caught me. But that thing isn't mine, sooooo... you should probly kill that before it kills us all." He then looks up towards the creature and pulls the pin on the grenade, being sure to hold the handle down."If you won't do something I will, and you all probly wouldnt like it." He smiles holding the grenade above his head. rolled 17+1=18 diplomacy The guards look at Grexas a moment before one shouts. "Then get on the ground and don't move. Men kill that thing." The guards then take aim at the beast.

The wolven creature pounces on one of the guards before the men can move to follow his superior's orders.
The guards falls down, prone and helpless under the sheer weight of the creature's massive body.
The spider wolf then opens up its massive jaws and they open dividing in four parts, all bearing huge fangs. The jaws close on the guards head while at the same time, the two frontal claws of the beas rends the flesh under the guards' electronic looking armor.
Fr4om the tail of the wolf, a small gash in his flesh opens up, revealing a greenish tissue of entrails; suddenly, a weblike substance spits out of the gash, creating a mess of revolting spiderwebs hanging from the ceiling and covering all the way to the floor behind the creature in a radius of around 15 ft.
The screams of the guard start to die out as his blood pours to the ground; The creature's clawed legs make sploshing sounds as it moves its body while rending the dying guard.
The remaining men prepare to fire.
The captain fires its shotgun and misses; its pellets bouncing harmlessly off the web that the spider created. The captain turns his head a bit, seemingly confused that his gun did not penetrate the thick web-like substance either. He then screams to his men "Blast it!!"
The two kneeling guards raise their guns and blast some sort of energy bolts at the wolf; one of them impacts the creature on its frontal shoulder, creating a black scorch mark that broke some of its exoskeleton; the other shot misses the creature and hits the web substance, that catches a small flame and dissolves a small area of it.

 

All four guards then take a step back.

 

The captain, gathering his inner strenght, launches at the creature's claws in an attempt to liberate his man. He manages to remove one leg from the body of the guard, then; with some strenght left, the dying man screams out and removes the other claw from his stomach, then crawls back to his friends.
the wolf creature screams in pain and frustration, and jumps back to the wall of web it created, and starts moving so rapidly in the webs that the guards seem to have lost sight of it.
Grexas thought for a moment that the wolf jumped over the guards and disappear through the door leading to the upper levels.
Xephos could barely see the shape of the wolf among the webs, moving near the ceiling, preparing another attack.

Xephos feels his mind blur, and a haze comes over him, his eyes glaze over and he stands, taking in the area around him, not seeing with his eyes but with another sense, one he is familiar with. "Do not bother shooting me. Your human weapons are futile against me" Xephos says in a cold and sorrowful tone (Roll diplomacy 20 - 1 = 19) "We must... cooperate, distract the beast and i will deal with it personally" The guards do not raise their guns at Xephos, but survey the ceiling "oh, he is up there, i can sense it" (roll spot 18 + 2 = 20)
"Now, distract the beast and Decorus Calamitus and i shall deal with it personally" (Roll jump 16 + 8 = 24). Xephos jumps and becomes caught in the webs, he roars and he suddenly snaps into another state, still in the trance but now he feels stronger, more confident. His katana slices through the air (Roll 19 + 8 = 27) and hits one of its jaws, but keeps going, severing three of its legs with a sickening sucking noise as they fall off (Roll damage 5 + 6 + 4 = 15 x2 = 30) and the beast falls to the ground, moaning in pain and readying itself for a final attack. "Leave him" Xephos says calmly "He is mine." the guards point their weapons at the beast, but do not fire yet.

Grexas, moves closer to the guardwhile they're distracted by the spider and Xephos. He's a little upset Xephos took off on him, but it doesn't matter now.Grexas stops roughly 25ft from the cluster of guards. He pulls back and chucks the grenade, rolled 15+3=18 missle.The grenade lands true to it's target, rolling to a stop in the center of the guards.The grenade explodes tearing through the armor and flesh, killing the wounded man, and injuring the two with blaster rifles The officer rolls clear of the blast. One of the guards with the blaster takes aim at Grexas, as does the Officer. The light from the officers shotgun burns Grexas' eyes, he drops to the ground covering his eyes and grasing for his goggles.

The grenade explodes with a loud blast. Sharp fragments of steel bury themselves in the guards' armors and skins. The wounded man that the officer just rescued from the claws of the wolf spider gets a full blast of shards on his face, and his skin is torn to pieces, showing muscle and bone beneath.
The officer manages to jump and roll out of the main blast zone, the only damage done is to his armour and a few scratches on his skin. He rolls in to the chamber, finishing his movement next to the wolven monster. He takes a jump to the side, and aims the shotgun directly at the man that threw the grenade, turning its searchlight on him.
The other two guards are hit by the full blast, but their armour, even though it gets torn to pieces, manages to shield them off the blast enough to avoid being murdered by it. Then these guards look at their downed friend and raise their blaster rifles, one aiming at Grexas, and the Other aiming at Xephos, who is still on the ceiling, fighting to get free of the tangled webs.
The officer shouts out: "Bloody lay down face to the ground or we'll blast you sonnies. you are under arrest and only making it worse on yourselves. One more movement from you and its off to the mortician with you! Your beast is already dead anyway and you got no way out! and you up there, let that blasted sword fall or I'll have me boyo here burn those pretty wings in to a crisp... be like fried chicken!!"
As he finishes his threats; the wolf jumps up to Xephos, trapped in its web, hoping to rend that hideous face in to pieces. The wolf has a look in its eyes that seem to understand that Xephos cannot move his arms to defend himself and will make a feast of him. He gets close by crawling freely on its web, then unleashes a flurry of claw attacks and bites with its remaining jaws that rend through Xephos face (22 attack) inflicting terrible gashing damage (9 damage)
The guards then fire a burst of blaster bolts, at both Grexas and Xephos.
Both blaster shots miss, and Xephos can see the web catching on fire rith where his shoulder is, the flames look like they might do some harm. Xephos starts to squirm and turn trying to get free before being either eaten to death, shot to death or burned to death.
The blaster bolt aimed at Grexas impacts him on the shoulder, (18 attack) doing some damage and laving a black scorch mark on his skin (4 damage)
The officer fires his shotgun at the animal slahsing at Xephos "We'll have none of that you fiend" he says as his shots pierce the body of the spider thing, "that boy is for the law", he finishes as the body of the wolf falls to the ground.
Then the officer pumps a fresh round in his shotgun and repeats his warning, "c'mon boys, you don't want this anymore than I do. We are lawmen, and not to be feared or fought against, we keep civilization to a level that you boys appear to want to torn down. So step down, lay on the ground face down and no harm will come to ya, I'll promise you that".

The Ark:: A RPG Session continues::: The monstruous centipedes under St George

Xephos hauls himself off the floor and grasps his katana in his right hand and his pistol in his left, and steps forward, next to grexas, he looks around and tries to see a way forward. (roll 20 + 5 spot = 25)

As Xephos enters the room with his weapons ready, he surveys the place with a penetrating gaze. His eyes pierce the darkness of the huge rectangular chamber only so far.
To the west, in front of him, he can see the other side of the room, about 35 ft away, and to the north at his right he can spot a big iron door similar to the one he just went through.
To the south on his left, in the middle of the room there are three big cages, about the size of a man. They are open and a little red light blinks constantly on a panel next to the door on both cages. The iron door on the northwest corner also has a panel that glows with a blinking red light.
Farther to the south, Xephos guesses that the room must be about 70 ft long, and his eye can barely pierce the darkness there, and he alone can see, about 50 ft away, two massive elongated and bulbous bodies twitching, and moving about, rising like worms standing up to the height of a tall human male, hundreds of little clawed feet sprout from the things’ misshapen blobs. Both are wearing what appears to be a metal collar around what might be the thing’s bulbous head. That head is also embedded with several green spherical eyes that seem to posses some sort of terrible and malign intelligence. Also they look pretty hungry.

Xephos immediately reacts and spreads his wings wide, flying toward the easternmost thing, (roll run 17 + 4 = 21 ) and lands on its head, next he swings his mighty katana (17 + 6 = 23) and it collides with the things "Skin" (Roll 2, 5 + 4 = 11) and cuts into it, causing a deep gash. thick yellow blood pours out, and xephos feels it somewhat comforting, it is similar to his own and he starts to feel a little guilt at cutting this thing.

Farther to the south, Xephos guesses that the room must be about 70 ft long, and his eye can barely pierce the darkness there, and he alone can see, about 50 ft away, two massive elongated and bulbous bodies twitching, and moving about, rising like worms standing up to the height of a tall human male, hundreds of little clawed feet sprout from the things’ misshapen blobs. Both are wearing what appears to be a metal collar around what might be the thing’s bulbous head. That head is also embedded with several green spherical eyes that seem to posses some sort of terrible and malign intelligence. Also they look pretty hungry.
The monstrous centipede squirms at Xephos’ attack and recoils, preparing to bite him. From the middle of the room, the second creature rises up in its multitude of legs on the back part of its body and launches itself in two slithering and lightning fast movements that end up behind Xephos. The thing opens up a jaw that displays several fangs about the size of a child’s arm and attempts to bite Xephos’ head off with two fast bite attacks (18, 13) The first bite allows the creature to sink its fangs in to Xephos’ skin, and the jaws of the thing close in on his throat. The pain is excruciating and Xephos can feel himself being sort of pulled in to the thing’s mouth, he can feel the muscles working on the worm’s jaw and throat, pulling him to a certain agonizing death. (9 damage) Xephos finds himself struggling to be free of the creature’s jaws.
The wounded worm seems to laugh an evil insect like laugh and coils its body, preparing a mortal finishing attack on the winged man that hurt it.

Grexas climbs down off Zaj's back and rushes into the room. Seeing the monsters closed in around Xephos, Grexas passes his gun back to his tail before dropping to all fours. He rushes over to Xephos stopping a few feet from him. Grexas retrieves his pistol from his tail. He takes aim at the beast trying to swallow Xephos and fires. rolled 19+3=22 rolled 9+3=12 damage, Grexas' shot hits its target, blowing a hole in the creatures armor, the creatures disgusting blood sprays everywhere, Grexas sidesteps the spray and takes aim again, rolled (18+3)-4=17, rolled 12+2=14 damage. The creature spits out xephos and falls to the ground twitching.

The monstrous centipede holding Xephos in its clicking jaws lets out an insect like cry of rage at the hot metal piercing its body. As Xephos falls to the ground again, he sees with unbelieving eyes that the creature in front of him, recoils and jumps off to the eastern all then moves with blinding speed towards the door from which the companions came in. When the worm is at the left side of Grexas, it jumps off the wall, opening its legs to embrace the man with the smoking gun that hurt its mate. (22) The thing latches on to Grexas and the agile cat-like man can feel the squeeze of a giant’s embrace taking the air out of his lungs. Grexas can then feel hundreds of filaments sprouting from the worm’s disgusting body and inserting in his flesh (19) Grexas is hurt by this sudden attack, and he feels poison starting to work on him. (7 damage)
Meanwhile, the centipede that was trying to eat Xephos twitches in rage in the ground, and Xephos can see a very nasty looking sting sprout out of the thing’s rear end. The worm stands on its hundreds of legs and rises the rear end of its body, ready to skewer the winged man that wields the cold iron.

Seeing his ally trapped, he starts to turn, but then stops himself. "Self preservation" he tells himself and then, almost instinctively, he swings his blade in a wide arc and it hits the lower end of the "Thing" ( 16 + 6 = 22) and the blade cuts deep, very deep ( 6 + 4 + 4). next he turns and squeezes off a shot towards his allies captor, it hits him (15) but bounces harmlessly off.

Xephos’ slash severs the rear portion of the centipede’s body off, the tail flies off, squirming, the sting no longer a threat. The wounded centipede hisses at Xephos and squirms all over its body. Then he protrudes a vein like tube from its wide open jaws and spits a squirt of acid at Xephos’ face. Xephos reacts in a blinding movement and twists his body. The acid shot flies little above his face and it lands harmlessly on the floor behind him, burning some of the stone and making a small cloud of smoke. Then, the monstruosity jumps at Xephos and bites with its powerful fangs (17) inflicting a nasty wound on Xephos chest (5 damage)

Grexas feels the poison from the creature flow into his body, but thanks to his work hunting mutants with L.O.B.O.S his body is able to fight off the poison. rolled 17+3=20 opposed grapple. Grexas manages to free himself from the creatures grasp, though he feels many small wounds bleeding along his back, he feels a bit light-headed, but quickly recovers. rolled 20+5=25 tumble. Grexas moves back 10ft with an effortless backhand spring. Once he is back on his feet he takes aim and fires. rolled 13+3=16, rolled 8+2+1=11 damage. The shot tears through the creatures body, spraying blood everywhere. The shot seems to have penetrated a vital organ as the creature dies, twitching on the ground. Grexas stares in disbelief "Well, that was easier than I was expecting."

"Too right mate" Xephos mutters, before swinging his epic katana of epicness in his widest arc yet, hitting its torso ( 20 + 8 = 28 ) with a very powerful hit, driving clean through and spraying blood across the room, ( 2 + 6 + 4 x 2 = 26) and then he swings again, and again, and again, until there is nothing but the skull on the floor, which he stomps with a satisfying crunch "I think i win!" he yells across the room.

As the two companions holster their weapons and look about them, they rejoice in having lived through this terrible ordeal with creatures far from what they thought existed under the sun, stars or underground. The world has become a threatening, strange place, and there is no telling what awaits them beyond the door of this huge rectangular underground chamber. The door still blinks its red lights, in synchrony with the three cages, and the metal collars of the monstrous things that lie dead on the floor at their feet. Little by little, Zajeyu enters the room behind his friends, not wanting to be left behind.
The door stands in the north eastern corner, it opens northwards, the cages are in the middle of the room, and the companions stand some 20 feet north of the southern wall. To the south only a huge concrete wall can be seen, apparently, the only exit is to the north.

Grexas holsters his pistol and brushes himself off a bit. He walks over to Xephos and gives him a quick examination before pulling out the medkit. rolled 11+12=23 treat injury. rolled 8+3=11 hp restore (+5 for Grexas +6 for Xephos) After patching himself and his buddy up Grexas looks around the room. He picks up the collar from the creature Xephos annihilated. "So what's with these collars? Did someone keep these as guard dogs?" Grexas says more to himself than to anyone else. Grexas examines the collar in his hand a little more closely. rolled 13 search. Noticing nothing but the obvious lights and electronics, Grexas decides to go search the cages.

As Grexas nears the cages, he notices there are panels next to the open doors of the cages. The panels have a numeric keypad and red blinking lights that go on and off in sync with the lights at the doors and the collars. Going in to one of the cages, Grexas notices a steaming pile of organic remains, hman, by the look of some refused clothes and bodyparts.
Among the refuse he catches a metallic surface and grabs at it. It is a small box that has some symbols and letters written on its surface on a languaje Grexas cannot understand. He only catches one word in a yellow and black striped lettering: CAUTION.
Grexas decides to open the box and finds 6 fragmentation grenades in it, along with an electronic datapad. After looking closely at one of the grenades trying to assess its capabilities, he looks at the datapad.
The device has no functions available, and only one incoming message can be read: "The shipment will arrive at St eorge next Week. Meet at eastern gate. Bring it to those underground as part of our help. Signed, XXXXXX (Garbled). against the purists.

Grexas thinks to himself, o there's three cages, but there were only two creepy crawly things. He looks around the room. "Guys, keep an eye out for another one of those things. It looks like there may be one more." Grexas packs away the grenades and decides to examine the keypads on the cages. rolled 17 search check. He then looks over the walls of the room looking for another blinky collar. rolled 18+4=22 spot.

"Sure thing" Xephos mutters "Maybe next time we can kill it quicker!"

Xephos starts to walk towards Grexas, but his foot slips on a thick liquid on the floor, and he almost falls "This blood doesnt affect me..." he mutters to himself and out of his Antitox bag he pulls three empty syringes and fills them full of the creatures blood. He walks towards another cage and looks for anything useful ( rolled 17 + 2 = 19 spot).