Our heroes, the De Facto Explorers, are investing a facility of the Toard Jakey between Riverbend and Fair-Town.
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Sneaky Pete: A mutated weasel scout. Pete's telepathy and night vision take a backseat when he whips out his electrical powers. Apparently addicted to his newly uncovered yellow powder found at "The Pool House"
Sonny Helianthus: a nearly 10' tall sentient sunflower artifact examiner with trusted Restorationist ties. Knowledgeable, but not a good one with device repairs or upgrades. Just went out of his comfort zone to rescue Lathar from becoming a human sacrifice to "The Beast."
Slitheran Wurmtail (aka Squiggles): a mutated earthworm scout, in impromptu power armor, looking for trouble, and finding it often. He has been subject to genetic testing and developed super-human strength, a more human body, and a thick coat of shaggy white hair.
Lathar Bracken: A pure-strain human from River Bend. He's got the muscle, the face, and a mount for most encounters. Lathar's trusty beast of burden, No Name, travels wherever he does. Looking for trouble in all the right places. Former jousting champion of Fair-Town.
Thunnelda Haycock: A peculiar local woman, who has a penchant for wandering the surrounding territories for particular oddities, but has become the fiancé of Lathar
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The Explorers embarked back to the old Toard Jakey research site, that they had nicknamed "The Pool House." Sonny and Peter had helped cobble together enough supplies to test out the setting and the large "Alchemical Pool" that could transmute one material into another. The march on foot was full of laughter, of theory, of dreams detailing how they were going to put the pool to good use.
Once they arrived on site, even the oblivious Sonny knew there was to be trouble. The main door of the facility, Thunnelda's "Door without Hinges", had been untracked when they initially broke in. Upon leaving, they propped the door up, blocking the entrance, so only smaller vermin might enter/escape the complex.
Arriving on site this time, they all noticed the door neatly moved to the left, leaving enough room for a medium-sized humanoid
Thunnelda: Were we supposed to have guests?
Sonny: No.
They were quite cautious going in, with Lathar leading the way. The electrical gate they had disconnected to get in, but still attached to the wall, was now removed and placed at the foot of the stairs to one of the plant-dominated rooms they chose to enjoy. The main chamber and laboratory of the facilty had been struck by vandals who were half-successful smashing computer terminals and other equipment.
With they keycards they had acquired they finally reached the nexus of the facility: the alchemical pool and its control room.
They were met by an unfamiliar sight:
Thunnelda: That's new!
Standing near the front of the pool was a large 4 1/2 foot tall statue of a bright yellow bird. It look very lifelike and emitted some form of an aura around itself.
Squiggles immediately fled to the entrance of the facility. "No, no, no, no, NO, no! I hate any bird almost as much as I hate fish!"
Sonny burst out his "glow badge" and before he even touched the statue, the badge recorded the highest level of glow possible.
Squiggles reaction and the high glow forced the Explorers to head back to Riverbend. Sonny rambled on about perhaps traveling to Bartertown to find garb to defend against the glow, perhaps at the Bug-Mart.
Pete: Bartertown? You mean Fair-Town?
Sonny: Same difference! We don't need another geography hero....
Lathar: The joust is coming up, that would give me a few extra days for training before we left....
The group returned to Riverbend without issue. Squiggles revealed that the statue immediately triggered his phobias, but also the statue reminded him of the larger black birds who feasted on his children soon after birth.
Next: #91 - Fair-Town and the Joust
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