IC Thread: Behave and Beheld [5E]

[TriciaOso]

"No," says X'Htd. "And we should really get out of here before that Lieutenant contacts the real cops in B'li Ylix."

You don't need any better prompting. You crowd into the rope trick and blast off before X'lva can think of any other errands for you to run.

Your journey back is smooth and uneventful, with the help of the dextant. You still have to periodically refresh the rope trick, but your navigation is much smoother than last time. You don't even need to break out the book of astral currents.

B'Nxam is still blockaded by General M'Ta's forces, space navy on your side of the ongoing civil war. Their home base in M'Duq, and you rendezvous with one of the Gauth class warships and hand off the prophets. In return, they give you three spare fighter pods. Each just large enough to encase a Beheld, they are telekinetically propelled.

Every Gauth ship is equipped with ten fighters, each outfitted with a different weapon. These are unarmed, but will still give you the increased durability and the capacity to move around in space, as long as you don't get too far from your mothership.

You flit past the Panoptica's sensors on the moon and come in for a landing back in the city of N'Ye. You should probably report back into W'zwzxi, but you also have some time for yourselves for the first time in a few days.

Spoiler: Mechanical

Show

You also are now level 5.

[Thrasymedes]

B'xli gives a long slow blink of relief upon reaching the blockade and safely handing over their passengers...a relief that lasts until the gift of the fighter pods.

"I knew I should have taken that hard point apart and stowed it aboard."

Blinking his eyes he resumes his trip then turns to the others:

"Before we get back, I have some options in what abilities I prepare, is there anything you think I should focus on?

Also, I am inclined to try and find some fairly significant farmer to do some experiments with. Please let me know if you have any ideas, otherwise I was planning to ask W'zwzxi but do you want to check in with him first or wait?"

Spoiler: Mid Term Plans

Show

After arrival, he plans to reprepare his spells, spend a day or so working on the ship mechanically, then try to find a landowner or landowners with fairly substantial holdings (in the vicinity of 3/4 of a square mile or more). He would love if the individual was part of the resistance but other alternatives are possible.

[Seramus]

M'alax's eyes positively light up at the sight of the fighter craft, and he instantly swarms around each of them to give them an obsessive look-over.

"This is incredible! I never thought I would get to fly one of these things around, unless I paid through the earhole for the fun of it. I mean, sure, the Panopticon shuttled me around from one place to another, but that's hugely different from zipping in an actual fighter!"

It's clear the little beheld is going to be spending extensive time playing around with the craft.

"What kind of abilities? What kind of experiments? Can you bring back the dead like X'htd and X'lva? That seems like a really useful thing."

[clash]

Rex rides the excitement high of the successful mission for their trip back, but it wasn't enough. He needed more. He was ready to learn more. He was going to have a talk with the voice in the sky, the one who gifted him his power. See if there was more he could gain from him.

"I'm going to spend a bit of time practicing myself, get out to my shooting range. I have some ideas"

[Thrasymedes]

I am hoping to increase production with carefully placed controlled microburns. As far as raising the dead ...if I got to them fast enough and had some serious diamonds, yes. No I don't have those diamonds though.

Spoiler: Spells

Show

Fire themed Plant Growth and then Revivify.

[sandmote]

"None of my contacts are involved in jewelry, so I haven't the foggiest of where get those supplies. Security on death sounds like it'd be a great help." Ag'zear weighs his performance on the last mission before continuing. "Myself, I think I need to get some more practice with my weapon, see if I can get some more consistency out of my blows."

[TriciaOso]

From that conversation, a plan evolves. Ag'zear identifies a jewelry shop to hit, but as he warned, it's not his specialty, and you wind up having to pull the heist while the shop is open due a misreading of the hours.

An impromptu substitution of Rex as the clerk allows you to sneak B'Xli and M'alax into the shop, where a combination of Detect Traps, Detect Magic and good old-fashioned safe-cracking got the monk into the vault... to deal with the laser security grid. Even without magical aid, his agility and quick reflexes pay off, bouncing him like a pinball through the lasers.

Finally, Ag'zear telekinetically boosts your crew and the loot out the skylights, leaving only himself to be teleported by B'Xli's familiar. You walk away with a cool $6000 in diamonds, as well as $225 in miscellaneous gems you were able to stuff into pockets along the way.

[Seramus]

Afterwards, M'alax spills the diamonds out on the floor of their safe house and plays around with them like Scrooge McDuck admiring his lucky coin.

"I can't believe we pulled that off during business hours! The manager is probably going to get fired, so I feel bad for him, but did you see me dodge those lasers?"

Priorities.

[TriciaOso]

Mixed among the 'ordinary' diamonds, you find a few magical ones you keep as equipment. With your immediate needs taken care of, you wait until nightfall and the head to the document archive to meet with W'zwzxi.

You find him very excited, although he's always a bit like that. "Wow! You guys did great! Somehow you came out of that mission with the approval of the Dragon Knights *and* the Satyr League! To tell you the truth, the rebellion here on B'nxam has always lagged behind the other worlds, being here in the capitol of the empire, and I think sometimes the more major factions don't take us seriously. But you really put us on the starmap! And we've got something planned that will... well, I'm getting ahead of myself."

He sobers. "The precincts and Panoptica offices are all struggling to recruit these days, stretched thin. Since your first mission, activity on Moon base continues to decline. Rebellion forces from all over the continent have been gathering here. We're going to hit every precinct, outpost and government office at once and make N'Ye a free city, like T'Lah."

"Your role in this plan is absolutely pivotal. You're our strongest and most effective cell, and we want you to fire the first shot. We need you to seize the communication hub in the middle of the city and temporarily shut down all communications in and out, and most importantly within the city. The Panoptica forces will be unable to coordinate their response... hopefully they won't even have the whole picture until we have control of the major defenses."

[Seramus]

"Wait. Isn't the moon being taken over by a horde of zombies? I guess that does mean now is a great time to attack the main ground facilities and liberate the city, but that horde of zombies on the moon thing seems bad. I don't think zombies can fly ships down from the moon, but someone was controlling them, right?"

M'alax glances up at the roof cautiously, like the moon might be able to see or hear him talking about it.

[sandmote]

"I imagine the Panopticon is also better organized than on other worlds, which makes it more of an anti-gravity battle here."

After hearing the plan, he doesn't seem too impressed. "Not much money in splitting the city between cells, and a large risk. Still a good shot of organizing the 'free' part if we're on the rise, I suppose. What do we know about the hub's defenses?"

Spoiler: OOC

Show

Clarification: asking for more detailed information for methods of trying to get into the facility we're trying to shut down. Through the front door is one way, but I'm wondering if there's any method of pretending to be security/coming in the back, or cutting off power from the outside. Does the building have emergency power/known security measures we'd need to deal with.

[Thrasymedes]

"I for one may be able to participate but I think you are severely underestimating the risk from the moon base. We need you to have an agent get eyes on to confirm the situation up there to know how it is progressing. It won't help to take the city if they mass a hidden army up there to destroy us as soon as we move."

I agree strongly on the need to know what defenses the hub has. When are you planning to launch the attack? We recently acquired *a* fighter pod which I am interested in adding weapons to. If we could use it for the attack with armor or weapons, it would greatly enhance our ability to carry out the mission. Do you think the professor or one of your other contacts might be able to assist with the technical aspects and raw materials for it? I still have a little funds available to finance it."

B'xli paused for a moment then appeared to reconsider and looked somewhat discouraged.

"Never mind, rethinking it, it is too big anyway."

He then paused and took a deep breath.

"To clarify, I am good with doing this mission and support it but after that we need to resolve the other issue."

Spoiler: OOC

Show

Yes, he is going out on a limb. He only has one he wants to upgrade now, but let me know if he needs to roll a deception check. My thought is we upgrade one (maybe two, but right now he doesn't want to flash all his cards) for Ag'zear and possibly M'alax so we can take the com hub "Gundam Style"