Chapter 6: Battle For The Rock- Part 2
Note: Since Uxas is a sapient slime, with no genitals, we're using they/them pronouns for that character
In the fierce skirmish between Imperium and Astral Sea forces, our current party was nearly wiped out by a squad of Guardsmen with simple lasguns. Which is saying something, because the enemy is saving its trump card for last- we haven't encountered any soldiers with Dark Age of Technology weaponry yet!
But never to fear, three new heroes showed up to get John Henry and his crew out of that perilous position- a Tiefling named Solomon who does crazy martial arts to cast spells, a slime person (or Plasmoid) named Uxas who was a wizard's apprentice, currently looking for a new master, and a Lizardman named Tarmon who is widely feared for his unpredictable experiments in alchemy.
Getting through the siege with basic Guardsmen was the easy part. The hard part is getting off the Rock alive... and you'll start to realize why.
"Come quickly," Uxas said to their new party teammates. "We must reach the remnants of the spaceport sector before THEY do."
The party was running through the rubble-strewn alleyways of the Middle City on the Rock of Bral, en route to the city's docking bays, which were built from nearly indestructible adamantium, and were more than capable of surviving a preliminary bombardment.
"How does the slime talk without a mouth?," Zephyr asked, always one to say unnecessary things. "They don't seem to have any vital organs, either."
"We're in a desperate battle for our lives, and THAT'S WHAT YOU'RE ASKING?," Solomon snapped at him.
Henry apologized for that, while also roasting Zephyr.
"Sorry, my furry friend has a rather big mouth."
Uxas wasn't bothered. They were used to insensitive words.
"That's fine with me!"
"What enemies were you talking about before?," Desstra said, seeking answers to something best left unanswered.
As if to validate her question, a massive antimatter explosion flared up from the docking area of the city, not very far away at this point.
"What the fucking hell was THAT?!," Charlie exclaimed.
"The bad news issss, we have to run toward the explosion," Tarmon told everybody.
"We haven't even met any surplus Imperial soldiers," added Thianna. "I have a bad feeling about this. It's like the majority of both sides are deliberately staying away from the docks."
"We're gonna find out why," Solomon said.
A few minutes later...
Indeed, the spaceport's main docking bay had been left completely intact by the Imperials. Perhaps they intended to keep it around for anchoring ships in the Gothic Battlefleet. It was also revealed that the big explosion came from a Starfinder battle wagon that was blown to pieces for attempting to land Astral Sea troops in the general area.
But what handheld weapon could possibly bring down a vessel that large in one hit? It wasn't long until the party discovered a horrific truth.
Solomon had everyone duck behind the tentacles of an unoccupied squid ship sitting on the ground, because he knew for a fact that none of his crew stood a chance against the horrors from the Dark Age of Technology which were keeping watch over the dock, baleful weapon masters that he had only heard about recently from terrified mercenaries.
"This is the whole problem with escaping the Rock. These Tech-Priest Dominus officers are guarding the landing area, and their weapons can shoot out dark matter, convert you to subatomic particles, or incinerate your soul. While the Imperium takes over the rest of the metropolis using their main invasion fleet, these killing machines make sure unwelcome reinforcements can't get in, with the added benefit of keeping any more spelljamming ships from taking off and posing a threat to air superiority."
"So we're stuck here?," Charlie asked, in despair. "We don't have a way out of this? And the Imperial Navy ships are in the process of eliminating all obstacles to tyranny?"
Tarmon nodded in agreement.
"I've heard these Tech-Priest thingsss are practically invince-ible. Been told they're related to a Dark Age of Technology, very bad news."
Zephyr wasn't giving up easily though.
"Not if I have anything to say about it!"
"Really?," Thianna said, in doubt. "You just happen to have a solution for these unbeatable Tech-Priest gigachads with cosmic horror equipment?"
In response, Zephyr got a black and white striped canister out of his backpack.
"I took this from a dead cyborg-looking motherfucker, probably also a product of that same Dark Age of Technology. Judging by Charlie's analysis he made with his scanners earlier, it's an advanced smoke grenade that makes anyone within its radius truly invisible, unable to be detected by sight, sound, touch, or any other sense, conventional or not, while the thrower and his allies can see perfectly through the mist."
When he saw the canister device, Solomon's expression turned from grim to gleeful. He recognized it, since he had a fair share of knowledge regarding the Imperium of Man and its tactics, equipment and resources.
"Not just any smoke grenade, but a Mistborn Shroud Bomb! This is a perfect way out. But you all must know, the mist and smoke doesn't last very long."
Next, Uxas organized a plan for using it.
"First we're going to need to choose a spelljamming ship in the yard to steal. Then someone's got the task of throwing the magic smoke grenade as accurately and proficiently as possible, so we can stay invisible better."
To fulfill the first part of the task, Tarmon pointed at a turtle-shaped vessel and suggested nabbing it.
"Anyone want boiled turtle? Maybe the extra protection will let us sssurvive a little longer againssst reality-raping attacks!"
"I'll throw the smoke bomb," Thianna said. "I used to be a pitcher in knattleikr, which is a frost giant ball game, so you can count on me to toss that hot potato."
Desstra gestured everyone to get into position, then counted down. This needed to be timed exactly right.
"3... 2... 1... NOW!"
The scramble for survival began.
Thianna lobbed the shroud bomb, and everyone began moving as fast as they could. The Tech-Priests' compound eyes and sensors were blinded with static, but they knew something was going on, and were now on high alert. Of course, not everyone could run at the same speed, so Zephyr hitched a ride on Charlie's back, and Uxas morphed into a blob that stuck to Thianna's broad shoulders.
Solomon reached the turtle ship first, thanks to his semi-functional wings that let him fly for short distances, and yanked the boarding hatch open, helping his fellows climb inside one by one.
"Uxas! You're a wizard's apprentice! Can you fly this thing?!," Henry yelled, clearly panicking.
"You'll have to wait and see!," the slime replied.
Everybody got saddled up in the cockpit, and Uxas plugged themself into the spelljamming helm.
"It's going to be rough! Hold on everyone, I believe in you!"
By the time the turtle ship got airborne, the Dark Age Tech-Priests had fully regained their vision, and were sweeping their targeting scopes left and right, looking for the adversary that had blinded them. When they spotted the turtle ship, they unleashed the full wrath of their arcane weaponry.
A searing volkite beam barely missed the shelled vessel, with Thianna and Solomon feeling the heat, and a warp matter beam also made a close pass, except it kept going further and hit a red dragon and its Githyanki cavalry riders, ripping the souls out of the unfortunate mounted troops and condemning them to a fate worse than death. Two more shots from an antimatter conversion beam merely proved the Tech-Priests had a very hard time hitting a vehicle containing protagonist characters, just like stormtroopers, or Uxas was plain lucky.
The slime wizard, however, was able to get ahold of themselves, avoid the rest of the batshit insane anti-air attacks from the Dark Age Tech-Priests, and activate the spelljamming ship's interstellar travel function, which let all their companions off the hook... for now.
To achieve interstellar spelljamming speeds, the Turtle Ship accelerated to a velocity of 20 light years per standard day, or 120 trillion miles in 24 hours.
"Well, at least we know the magnitude of this threat," Henry let everyone know. "We narrowly escaped death multiple times, and this is just our FIRST skirmish with the Imperium. How are these Adventurer's Guild people gonna help us, Solomon?"
The stoic Tiefling had a solemn look on his face, and his reply was grim.
"It's not gonna be easy... first we have to examine the full scale of what we're dealing with. Even I don't know the full extent of the Imperial forces' capabilities. The Guild will help with that. Next, we need to find someone in the Guild who has a way of destroying the Horn of Osius. That's the tricky part."
To be continued...
You may be asking, "What happened to the Rock of Bral?" Was the pirate spaceport conquered by the Imperium successfully? You'll get an answer once I write the next chapter, involving the Adventurer's Guild- an absolutely massive collection of heroes from across the multiverse, the first defense against the invading forces from the 41st Millennium.