Barons of Rot

 

Saying goodbye to their nomadic compatriots the group heads north. Heading knorthward along the road.

Soon after crossing over a bridge a foul smell began to assault the noses of the the party, Jezebelle the owl scouted ahead, seeing steel chimneys blasting green fumes into the air.

Marching along the full extent of it becomes clear, a quarter of the fields of this village have rotted away into nothing. Mekinnimi began her chant, and with it her nose grew an inch outwards, inhaling deeply she recognized something in the air, past the smell of rotting wood soaked in vinegar, the smell of energy cores being used; it was a factory.

Soon they found themselves walking into the town through the open wooden palisades. It was a shell. Obviously built to hold triple the amount of people it now houses, it’s a ghost town. The only soul they could find was an old man with a large moustache and lots of warts, holding a bushel of lumpy root vegetables.

Caulder approached simply asked “What’s happened to this town?”

“It’s gone to shit!” the old man immediately answered “Three months ago those chimneys burst up from the ground, and they started poisoning the town. Crops don’t grow, people fleeing to Ux Quorath away. It’s all gone to shit!”

“Tried investigating it?”

“We tried, but anyone who got deep into the chimneys suffocated in that smog.”

Turning to the rest of the party Caulder smirks “Want us to chuck a bomb down there?”

“Yes! Anything to get rid of that”

“Woah woah woah woah woah” Amyl chimes in “We don’t have a bomb, and if we did we don’t want to anger whoever made this”

“No one made this, it just sprouted from the ground, no workers, no machines, nothing it just bursts one day, do something, get a bomb from Ux Quorath.”

“Why don’t you?”

“Because no one cares, we ask for help and we get nothing. I’ve lived in this town my entire life, and it’s a shell”

Roddy pipes in “Well let’s say we did do this for you, how would we get paid?”

“We can pay you in pickled vegetables.”

“Hmmm, how about labor and working for us? You owe us a favor?”

“You want money? It’s a machine strip the copper from the wires for all I care. Just get rid of it, bomb the damn thing.”

“This sounds like a problem for you” Amyl chimed in.

“Oh it wasn’t a problem at first, but the rot has grown and no one cares. Its gonna keep growing and it’s gonna be Ux Qorath’s problem soon but no one cares now no one cares. If you want money to do this whatever, I’m the elder you can become the lord of this hamlet, at least someone will care. I just want to live in the village where I grew up, and if it takes you being barons then so be it. Defend your rightful land, collect your pity taxes just blow the damn thing up, shut it down or something!”

Out of obligation the group decides to give the chimney choked field a look through, an outscropping of state bedrock, where the weakened soil had eroded away. Drash inspected the stone carefully, and after 20 minutes of searching, tapping away at the stone soon discovered a hollow, moving chunks of slate aside two steal doors leading down into the earth below were revealed.

Mekinimini’s owl attuned eyes peered into the darkness, nothing but plain metal stairs all the way down. Without the slightest bit of hesitation, Amyl rode the handrail down into the darkness below.

A massive silo filled with purple pellets greeted them all, mechanical arms reached down from the ceiling above, piling them into ever cackling furnaces. Mekinimini the green took interest in the pellets, descending down a ladder into the pile. Though much weaker than the smell of the smoke it was unmistakable, it was the same acetic smell of rotting wood.

Amyl explores the rest of the ringed platforms in the silo and discovers on the far end another door, a sickly green light shining from under the door, fae alters the rest of the new barons.

Caulder brave opening the door, only after poking around the entrance with his spear in order to check for pressure plates. Inside he is met with the green glow of a computer screen, the entire room taken up by great computational machines whirling away.

Mekininmini zeros in on the computer and quickly realizes it's running atmospheric simulations, it’s spewing fumes out to xenoform Irð into something else. She quickly looked through all the files, seeing the ins and outs of how the program works and how it maintains this xenoforming module, she finds something.

There are 13 stasis pods, they were in use up until 2 minutes ago. Something else is with them in the darkness of this silo now.

Caulder rushes to the side of the door, Amyl places faer lantern on the ground reading a longbow shot, drash puts shield in hand, and Mekininimini starts entering code to brick the entire computer system frantically.

The door to the room creaks open slightly, caulder is the first to act jabbing his knife into whatever it is that is opening the door.

A creature ribbed with mushroom gills, coated in lobster like plating was peaked into the light and soon found a dagger to the neck, thick syrupy blue blood spraying out.

The thing falls to the ground, knocking the door fully open. Amyl unleashes, the arrow flies piercing through the chest chitin and skewering it to the floor behind it.

Drash ran out past the body and into the silo, where he saw 11 more shocked creatures having just seen their scouts drop in an instant.

Two began to charge while the rest stayed back, Caulder and Drash formed a shield line and charged out of the room in return. Amyl picked on off with another longbow shot straight to the stomach, the chitin around it’s head shattered and a puff of spores mixed with blue blood splattered onto the wall.

Caulder’s spear hit true into the abdomen of the creature, piercing it and causing it to swell with blood, Drash used his shield to knock the thing into the pit.

With four creatures downed in 20 seconds the others knew what fate awaited them, they began to flee into the darkness. The new barons could hear them clamboring up the stairs. The followed suit not waiting to give them any time for their opponents to trap them.