Skyside 4

[Ionbound]

[Cass's Street]

Cass smiles and says, "Actually, a Gorgon. Now...How do you feel?"

As she speaks, Chevin should feel...strange. Shi might realize that the silveriness is his eyes is leaking out, spreading it over his face until it's a silver mask. Then, it spreads down hir body, converting flesh to mithril, forming cogs and clockwork in the place of joints and muscle. Cass's grin widens as she watches the process, unsure of how her 'curse' worked, but excited to see it's results for the first time.

[Recaiden]

"Eyes are kinda watering."
Chevin switches hir viewpoint around - how does Cas see, for example - and promptly takes a step back.
"Woah, woah. Why am I all-?"
Shi trips, not used to the smooth gear-rotation of hir joints as opposed to the bouncy tendon, and topples over backwards. Landing with a 'clang'. The answering voice is slurred and a little deeper.
"I feel heavy and smooth and I might be blind? What did you do? Are you a wizard?"

[ThirdEmperor]

[Goblin Market]

"Yes!" The miserable creature groans, chain rattling, pawing hopelessly at the tattered scrap of leather around his neck. The others chuff and glance away, seemingly embarrassed.

[Shadowcaller]

[Goblin Market]

"Understood." She looks back at Sticks and Jim. "So do any of you got any experience removing fey pests?"

[Deathkeeper]

Goblin Market

Jim holds up his hands and shakes his head.
"Heck no. I've got less fey experience than- well, I don't have any, is the point. So uh, yeah." he says, eyeing the hound warily. This whole scenario is full of weird.

[Murkus]

[Goblin Market]

"I'm privileged with experience removing spiritual pests... maybe there is some correlation-- what am I saying?! I am not some hound inspector!" Sticks says, as though it were a preposterous thing to suggest. "And it is nothing against the... the guardians there. I usually detest touching people at marketplaces as much as the animals, and the guards are both."

[WarKitty]

The beetle twists out of the way of the earwig and tries to close its own pincers on its head. Its rider is gone, but it's still fighting. Meanwhile, the goblin alchemist throws a bottle of acid at the insect, while the glaive-goblin and knife-goblin move to flank it.

Which puts the sprite about in line to be blasted at by a heat ray. No lightning - far too much risk of hitting the child they want to protect.
Kestrel reaches out its one hand (the five-fingered one attached by thicker cables) to put around Kulpa and tug him away from the sprite. A tug-of-war is not ideal, but if it can do something before the sprite gets a good grip, that will buy them more time to fight.

The earwig screeches and rears back as the acid strikes it head on, taking one compound eye out.

Unfortunately, the sprite has other plans. It fumbles with a small item on its belt. If successful, the sprite, Kulpa, and Kestrel will all be teleported into a concrete cell.

[Morty]

[Party Place]

The two melee-goblins seize the opportunity, trying to sink their weapons into the rearing insect. Their companions keep firing at it, meanwhile. They can do little about the teleportation.

[Recaiden]

Nor can Kestrel do anything about the dimensional travel other than hold tight to Kulpa.

How disorienting.

Here they are somewhere else. Small cell. Closed. Concrete, likely vulnerable to sabotage given some time. Normal gravity. Air pressure and apparent composition within normal bounds. The sprite has no obvious escape route. It's still in the same relative position as when they teleported.
Fire. Zzap! No, no, the heat ray makes more of a FWOOSH! sound.
Another free small-arm loops protectively around the child, while the other small manipulator not used for walking or weapons tries to peel the sprite's hand off of him.

[WarKitty]

Party Place

The earwig screeches as the weapons find their marks. It makes one last surge at the nearest goblin, swinging wildly in pain.

Concrete Cell
The sprite falls over as the ray strikes it. It shouldn't be an issue anymore.

More pressing is that the cell has no apparent means of egress. There are no visible doors or windows, and the walls appear to be covered in runes.

[Morty]

[Party Place]

The knife-goblin gets away in time, and so the glaive-goblin is struck. Only her thick armour saves her from being bisected. Instead, she's sent flying, probably with some broken ribs.

The goblins look around for more assailants, while their leader, the knife-wielder, tries to contact Kestrel. Hopefully they have some means of communication.

[Recaiden]

"Try to stay calm. While it is sad to be out of the party, you are safe from the fighting."

Kestrel examines the runes covering the walls to see if they're familiar. Perhaps they're the same style as the Vancian spell symbols used by Thormoses, or the glyphs of the Old Realm, or some well-documented form of magic. Maybe they're purely decorative. At the same time it's fiddling with its largest arm, unscrewing fasteners and exchanging pieces with a bay inside its hull.
Removed: humanlike synth hand.
Added: Small mining drill.
The tool spins up to speed and is tested against the nearest wall to see if it even leaves a scratch.

As for communication, do you think the cell blocks walky-talky sort of radios?
If not the goblin will receive a report that Kestrel is with the child in a sealed, apparently magically reinforced box. There's not a whole lot to describe.

[WarKitty]

Concrete Cell

The cell does not block communication, not being really designed for that. It does however send a large electrical shock running up the drill. The runes are indeed a Vancian style.

[Morty]

[Party Place]

"Got it. We'll try to find you," the knife-goblin says. The beast-taming goblin, having been patched up by the alchemist, brings another of his charges into the place. This time it's a small, pudgy pink creature with a large snout - a molerat. He gives it both Kestrel's and Kulpa's scents, and directs it to look for any traces of it around the building.

[Shadowcaller]

[Skyside - General]

A new kind of pests have invaded the city, small insectoids have started to show up outside and inside people's homes, stealing shiny objects, usually silver, and fleeing before their owners can catch up with them.

[WarKitty]

Skyside - Tempest Row

A large wolf with a spider mark on his fur attempts to follow the trail of the bugs.

[Shadowcaller]

Skyside - Tempest Row

As the wolf observes the bugs, he can see that they're moving in smaller groups on three, but as soon as anything gets close to them, they scatter in every direction. They move in short rushes, running a good thirty meters before suddenly stopping and looking around for a moment, before they start moving again. From what he can tell, they also seem to be stealing away paper too. Where they are hiding all their stolen goods, he can't see however. It just seems to... disappear. Perhaps they eat it somehow?

[WarKitty]

Tempest Row

The wolf very carefully tries to follow a group of three from a distance. He uses scent trails to stay back, assuming the bugs leave any sort of scent.

[Shadowcaller]

Tempest Row

They do leave a scent, though the fact that they can fit into small spaces, still makes them difficult to follow. The wolf will notice that all the groups eventually crawl into some hard-to-reach place such as the sewers or a storm drain, much like their smaller kin. It will be difficult following them down there.

[WarKitty]

Tempest Row

A tiny imp hops off of the wolf and follows a bug into the sewer.

[Shadowcaller]

Tempest Row

As the imp descents into the sewer it will see the three insects disappearing into a small tube, which even they have to crawl through. It looks like the poor imp will have to do the same, wherever these creatures are going, they don't want to be followed. If the imp finds it in it to actually crawl through that pipe after them, it will find itself in a fork in the pipe, three different pipes leading in different directions, which one does it take?

[WarKitty]

Under Tempest Row

The imp does indeed crawl through the pipe. When it gets to the fork, it pulls out a tiny flute and starts playing. Images of the past should start appearing in the pipe!

[Shadowcaller]

Underneath Tempest Row

In that case, the imp will see that the bugs went through the left pipe and if it follows it, the imp can soon hear voices. It can't understand them however as they're in some alien language that not even the nexus can understand. If it continues it can see the all the bugs standing around a device which they appear to be speaking with.

[WarKitty]

Underneath Tempest Row

The imp turns invisible and very carefully flies closer to the machine.

[Shadowcaller]

Underneath Tempest Row

The 'machine' is actually pretty small, about the size of a football. It's producing small puffs of yellow smoke and could be mistaken for a radio, if it was driven by glowy magical energy. It might even be a radio considering it's producing the voice of whoever, or whatever is talking to the insects.

[WarKitty]

Underneath Tempest Row

The imp produces a small camera and takes pictures of this strange device. It continues to watch for a little while.

[Shadowcaller]

Underneath Tempest Row

The bugs and whoever is on the other side of the line continues to talk and eventually the bugs bring up the collection of shiny objects they managed to gather and the imp can see that the silver in particular have taken on a sheen to it, it's actually glowing for some reason. They also show maps and pictures of skyside before putting it all away into large black urn. They move to stand around this urn in a circle, just like they did with the 'radio' and appears to be casting some sort of spell on it, or perhaps it's starting to glow green for some other reason. Either way they will finish it up and then put everything away, hiding it underneath a piece of ragged cloth.

[WarKitty]

Under Tempest Row

Once the bugs leave, the imp begins to poke around, trying to see what's under the cloth.

[Shadowcaller]

Underneath Tempest Row

Underneath is what the bugs hid, that radio-device, the urn and a few devices that appears to be meant to be handheld. Like some kind of mechanical weapons perhaps?

[WarKitty]

Underneath Tempest Row

The imp gingerly picks the device up, examining it for any sort of controls.