(For now, you're not limited by the move limits of combat rounds. So don't worry too much about reprinting the map with your proper position as you move.)
Ragjen, Morgiana and Qorina gain +1 Fortitude Defense for the rest of the day. They are also good guests for eating the offered meal!
Rosco immediately shoos Morgiana back upstairs to the deck as he rushes upstairs carrying a giant metal box under each arm. He hastily throws the remains of the basilisk feast to the side and slams both boxes down. Muscles begins tearing into the left-overs with hearty zeal(after indulgently cooing at Ragjen and eating his offering.) Rosco opens the first box: a giant ratchet set of tools for his modular giant wrench, including dozens of saw-blades and precision cutting cases. He opens the other box and reveals what appears to be bits of arcane smashed into bits of metal smashed into strands of electronium. The top of the disastrous device is a small panel made of a pitch black metal that seems to absorb all light... the obsidian black panel has 12x12 rows of buttons, each labeled by a single runic sigil. Three of the symbols have dabs of paint on them. Roso strikes the three and begins unfurling and stretching out parts of the device, eventually producing a stand, several dongles and jangles and jacob's ladder's like rods that generate electricity. He sets the thing upon the deck and aims away from the ship, up into space... a 45 degree angle at the side of the ship.
Rosco bellows in triumph. "ALRIGHT NOW! I'm gonna use my amazing invention to tear a rift into the one plane I can reliably reach... the clockwork majesty of MECHANUS! Your job's real simple... find something that's steel or iron or thereabouts, not soft or volatileor nothing. Simple BUILDING metal. I'll hash out the replacement parts and get the engine working. But you oughta overdo it. Bring back about a hundred pounds of metal."
Rosco adjusts some fine dials, which make the arcing rods adjust and their electrical bolts fire more frequently until stable. He adjusts another dial, gradually changing their colors from sky blue to a fine rusty gray-brown. "Now, this isn't an exact science, which is what makes it so exciting... and dangerous. I can guarantee you a few minutes of a stable rift but after that you need to get back IMMEDIATELY. Don't dilly-dally. If the rift closes on you, I can't promise you'll find your way back in this lifetime. But that's why you're the best, ain'tcha? In fact, the entire plane is made of metal, so really.. get in, get out, we're on our way." Rosco grins ear to ear. "Now normally I'd follow you in but somebody has to be on this side and all. And uh, that place might be full of angry natural denizens and the like. None of you look like a mechanic so you'd be pretty stranded if I died and all. But I really envy you, I do... it's an entire plane of machines! Well, good luck!"
With manic glee, Rosco fires! The Rift Device seems to .. scratch... the surface of the space about 15 feet off the ship. The scratch begins to wiggle, wriggle and grow until it is doubling in size at an alarming rate. It seems to normalize with a 20 foot spread, erecting a rip in space-time that seems as viable as leaping through an open window. What you can see through it is as Rosco said: machines and metal everywhere. There is a stable plateau of solid ground to leap to and the leap is effortlessly safe to make.
Mechanus, The ClockworkYou step out onto what appears to be a massive awning that is part of a giant, strange metallic construction hanging from a branch that you can see above you going off into the distance.. it is miles long. The branch seems to be one of hundreds, as in every direction you can look there are similar massive branches. They seem to belong to a tower that stretches higher into the sky than you can see before it finishes and descends just as far, vanishing into the clouds of what you assume are millions of smog-producing machines working in tandem. The sound of machinery is actually rather low-key and tolerable as a very distant background noise. Everything around you currently is either quiet or sounds like perfect clockwork, in absolute sync.
Ahead of you appear to be a few paths leading into the main alcove chamber that connects to the bridge(so you are standing on an unknown extension from this main chamber), which seems to be a very neatly wrapped dome on the bottom edge of the branch. There are two devices of note here. One appears to be an empty cylinder(like say the outline frame of a circular elevator shaft) and the other seems to be a simple six-foot tall rod made of brass and silver with minor iron framing. At the top of it is a large, brilliantly polished ruby. It shimmers with unknown purpose and destiny and bears a single strange sigil.. inside it? Written in flame.
There seem to be dozens of strands of tiny clockwork gears dangling everywhere, as though gorgeous little chains of brass, silver and golden strands. If you look closely enough, they are actually rotating in perfect sync with the soft sound of clockwork you hear and they somehow seem to rotate with enough inertia to be perfectly stable. Not that there seems to be any wind.
Hive Balcony, Alcove #127
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R/M/Q/S/J/I/B/K - PCs!
~ Slopes
^ Map Advances This Way
-*- Strange Device
{} Metallic Shaft
_ [] Bag of Hot Air
Status
R 74/74
M 63/63
Q 98/98
S 66/66
J 83/83
I 83/83
B 104/104
K 87/87
Author
Topic: The Iythian Reaches: Humble Beginnings (Intro) (Read 16732 times)