The Sathar artifact is located far west of where you are in the dry plains.  You get your equipment together and get back into the jetcopter.  In the jetcopter, you travel over miles and miles of terrain and can only look back with a touch of fondness and disgust as you realize how much you had to cross by foot over many days, which you now cross in a matter of minutes.

You can see the artifact from a ways off as you approach.  The artifact is actually a 20 foot tall metallic pyramid standing in the midst of a dry, grassy plain.  There is a bowl-shaped device on top of the artifact, and it is rotating at high speed.  Various protrusions on the device demonstrate that it is a combination of several devices.  As you come in closer, the artifact begins to hum, and one of the devices points in your direction.  You can see a glow from the device.

You are about one kilometer from the artifact when it shoots a high powered laser beam in your direction!  The beam just misses the jetcopter, and you fly it back out away in retreat.  It looks like it is some sort of anti-aircraft laser with a one kilometer radius.

You realize that your jetcopter might survive one or two direct hits, although you can always land it outside the beam's range.

OOC:
Sometimes I like to tell you what you missed in the last adventure.  I may post more, but one thing I noticed was that you bypassed the well in the ruins.  I was going to have the water in the well have slight healing properties, as a reward if you got past the babboons.

Many of the passages you did not explore were similar to the ones you did inside the ruins.  There was one encounter with a native creature that you missed though.

Experience awards:

I may go back and see if anyone deserves a bonus point for any really great ideas...if time allows.

OOC: I knew we should have gotten naked at the pool and taken a bath. Some of you Inta is sure smell from the days of bloody travel.

IC: Inta sighs, "well it looks like we should travel by foot once again. We should look for a place that can conceal the copter while we are wandering around trying to save this miserable world." She laughs, "besides, there is nothing else to do here".
This message was last edited by the player at 22:26, Tue 21 Aug 2007.

Desiraye hops out of the jetcopter after it lands and gets her gear ready and making sure her laser rifle is ready and the power line to the beltpack is still attached.  She turns to the rest of the group, 'Listen, take all of the grenades and anything offensive we can carry with us.  If this is in fact a Sathar base, we're going to be on the offensive and defensive and probably not taking many prisoners.  Let's do this right and be careful."

Lerku loads up with his needler rifle and ammo, and his grenades and bioscanner.

Becka will grab all of the things that she is accustomed to carrying before looking around to see what remains.  She will happily tow anything that needs to be carried.

OOC: Hopefully, schedule is lightening up now.

You land the jetcopter about a kilometer away to be out of range of the anti-aircraft laser.  It is all grassland, so there's no place to really hide the jetcopter, but it makes for an easy landing.

You get your normal gear together (I'm assuming same as the equipment list) and get ready.

You have the one little robot with you still.

With your equipment on hand, you begin walking the kilometer or so to the artifact.  To your right, you see a group of creatures like horses grazing peacefully.

You get about 60 meters from the jetcopter when you notice all the horses look up and around skittishly.  Then you hear something from the trees...something large and approaching.

When it charges out of the forest, your eyes open wide.  A huge, dinosaur-like creature runs out from the trees.  It is about 10 meters long, 5 meters tall, and looks like a giant reptilian cat with a long tail.

The horses begin stampeding.  As luck would have it, they are stampeding directly towards you.  The dinosaur creature is running after them to get them.  It appears that the horse-like creatures will stampede through your location first, and then the dinosaur monster will be just a few seconds or more behind the herd as they pass by--or through--your position.

OOC: Watching the stampeding herd and the attacking dino, will we have enough time to get back near the helo and at least have that at our backs so that at least the herd of horses can't go right through us?

OOC:  No, you will have to try to evade the horse creatures somehow.  They are coming in at an angle such that running to the jetcopter is also running toward them.  Since it is less than a kilometer away, you could try running to the artifact or taking some other means.  Bartja may be able to glide some.

Given the hungry dinosaur cat, your characters may be thinking that the safest place is inside the artifact.

Here's a diagram.  Horses are running ESE according to this diagram.

<dinosaur>
        <jetcopter>
     <horses>>
     <horses>>    <you>
     <horses>>





                   <artifact>

OOC:Lets see..........trampled.........eaten.......or lasered.

Inta unhooks a grenade as she runs toward the artifact.

Frisky says, "Run!"  He heads directly toward the artifact as fast as his many legs can carry him without looking back.

Lerku runs for the artifact, screeching obscenities in Dralasite as he runs.

Seeing the whole situation start to go to shit, Desiraye follows suit with Inta reaching for a doze grenade from her equipment harness.  She yells out for the others, "WE MAKE FOR THE ARTIFACT!  THROW SOME GRENADES IN FRONT OF US AS FAR AS YOU CAN AWAY FROM US AND TOWARDS THE HORSES!  WE CAN'T STAY HERE!"

Desi hopes the grenades will at least scare the horses to go around them and with any luck, head towards the dino, even if it slows it down while they make towards the artifact.

Dulob runs after the others.  Like Lerku, he is not very fast as a dralasite.  He pulls out a frag grenade and lobs it back toward the dinosaur area as best he can.  He tries to elongate his legs as he runs so he can go a bit faster.

"Yippee kay-ay!" he whoops.

The frag grenades were in Becka's hands as quickly as was possible given the terrain and the fact that she was running as she grasped them.  Thought her strides were longer, she remained at Lerku's side, unwilling to let her friend face the danger alone.  She tossed one, then the other grenade as Desiraye directed and hoped for the best.  She had two more grenades among her possessions but hoped that she would not need them.

You begin running...

Grenades fly through the air...

The horses approach quickly...

The grenades go off, and the horse creatures split into two herds which are now stampeding harder than ever after being spooked by the grenades.  One herd goes north and one goes south.

Everyone seems like they're going to make it...

...and then Dulob trips.

He is only a hundred meters from the artifact.  The rest of you are about 20 meters away and can safely make it to the artifact.  The southern herd of horse creatures is going right toward Dulob...and he cannot make it to the artifact in time....

The cat-like dinosaur is right on their tail.

A quick head count showed they were short a companion.  The last grenades in her pack appeared in Becka's hands almost magically as she turned around.  She had them out, ready to throw, and sprinted back toward Dulob.  "Get moving," she urged the Dralasite, "because I really don't know if this is going to work!"

Desiraye unslings her laser rifle and begins to drop to a prone position on the dirt.  She yells out to everyone once more, "PEOPLE WITH THE LIGHT WEAPONS, CONCENTRATE YOUR FIRE ON THE FRONT OF THE HERD AND TRY TO DIVERT THEM AWSAY FROM STAMPEDING DULOB.  THE REST OF YOU, OPEN FIRE ON THAT DINOSAUR THING!"

Desiraye begins to take aim on the closing dinosaur creature and while upping her SEU setting to TEn SEU per shot.

Prone, trying to carefully aim at the dinsaur creature

Lerku raises the needler rifle and shoots at the cat-dinosaur.

OOC:Inta has not thrown her grenade.

Standing up so that her head is above any foliage Inta prepares to throw her grenade where it will be needed most.

She will throw at the cat if the target is available.

"Target the front of the herd Lerku," Desiraye yells again.

A volley of firing and grenade throwing creates a ruckus.  The front of the herd is hit, and several fall down...but they are trampled by their companions.

As grenades go off, the herd switches directions.  The cat-dinosaur is very quick and sidesteps.  It is still too far out to hit very easily, but it looks from the herd to where the party stands shooting and throwing grenades.

The herd...still is too close, and Dulob cannot get out of the way in time.  You see your companion get trampled by the horses, and they move on.  You are left with the sight of several dead horse-creatures and the limp and dead body of your dralasite companion.

Meanwhile, the cat-dinosaur has turned its attention on you and is running toward you.  You may just have enough time to get inside the artifact...maybe.

And as you spin to look for the way in, you notice something not too far away, something that is a large bulge on the plains.  You realize that it is wreckage from some sort of jetcopter like your own.

You notice as you are glancing back that there does not appear to be an actual entrance to the artifact itself.

IC:Inta breathes deeply.

OOC:She is trying to smell if it may have gone down recently. She isn't about to wander over and take a peek at the wreackage. Survival is a more pressing matter.
although............

IC: She takes a moment to see if maybe the guns were looked usable on the ship. Gritting her teeth she lobs the grenade at the dino-kitty.

  "Hey over here! I'm over here! Its about time someone came and rescued me!" Says the vrusk. "Wait a second whats going on here?" Seeing the oncoming rush of herd a and something much worse the vrusk quickly changes his attitude. "Down here quickly!"