Rubies and Rivals ™ © Ⓡ (Part 2)
Thanks to the brilliance of gnomish tech, the gnomes built a small town outside of the city and named it "New Tinkertown", after their old place of refuge within Ironforge, and it was here that Twizzlerie Cogsprocket chose to build her lab-away-from-lab while the Survivor Assistance Facilitation Expedition cleared out the Troggs and the leper gnomes and the radiation and the failed adventurer bones...
It wasn’t that she minded the fresh air and sun though. There was something whimsical about waking up in the early morning, brewing a hot cup of black coffee, and listening to birds sing their melodies... be drowned out by the screeching of broken machinery while watching the ugly black smoke bellow out from the main generator responsible for supplying clean power to the whole house and filtering out the fumes from the forge in the basement.
Wait, what?
"Mekkatorque's Mechanical Pet Squirrels! Shite!" The gnome with the strawberry pink twin pig-tail hair drills grabbed her tinkers tool kit and goggles and rushed out the door, praying she could fix it all in time before the ram's milk in the icebox went bad. The metal door was left swinging wide open in her flurry, snow blowing in from the outside; it had just snowed the night before, so while a malfunction wasn’t entirely out of the question, a malfunction this spectacular was a great surprise. What she found outside was equal parts better and worse than she excepted. The good news was that the generator had not exploded by itself; The bad news was that the trouble was instead that the mechanisms had been stuck together with a thick, viscous, goo-like substance that puffed up like bread dough around the machinery. Touching it came with long, stretching tendrils following her hand back from the mass where she had placed it. It was steaming hot too; she dare not dig into it until the mountain air-cooled it enough to work on.
At the site of the explosion, taped to the side of the building, Twizz found a note:
"From the esteemed Frobisher, Gnome of Miracles ™! This smoke grenade is a small sample, designed to gain your attention. I trust I now have it? Good, good... to the point then, you clever Mechanical Squirrel. New Tinkertown is a place of innovation and brilliance, but it is not secure. Now to help make that point clear, I must inform you that several of the critical town services depend on fine gearwork, from the elevating platforms to the water and sewage treatment plants. These have not been secured, and it was easy to plant a total of twelve bi-partite explosive devices. The first part of the explosion is harmless - an explosive charge will send a packet of rough-grain flour into the mechanical space. Five minutes, a second explosion will spread the water. Within fifteen minutes, the two will combine to form a glue within the mechanisms, which will then grind to a halt! This, my adorable Twizzlerie, will give you the chance to play the hero and match wits with a worthy opponent. You have an hour before the first device detonates, after which eleven devices (twelve in all - not counting this one, which was just to introduce myself) in total will detonate at random sequences thereafter. Find the twelve and disarm them, and become a hero! This is your moment to shine! You are welcome!"
Signed with sincerity, Horatio Frobisher, Gnome of Miracles ™
* * * * *
Noxblade laughed from his hiding place on the hillside. Gnomish engineering was known for being overly complicated, but that generator was something else! So overburdened by safeguards and regulations that they forgot the two most important qualities; to keep them better protected than candy in a baby's hand, and to make them more resistant to daisy-chained containers of flour-based glue. The whole thing was open to the air, and it was a miracle that one of the tree branches hadn't already fallen into the machinery. So yeah, he threw a little something in there to gunk up the works. Sure, his client said no "accidents", but she was referring to not killing the gnome. Obviously, right? Besides, how else was he going to get her out of the place?
A worry for after the job. Right now he needed to get in the place.
Nox checked what gear he had brought with him one last time. Heavy cloth pads were tied around his feet, to mask the exact size and shape of his footprints in the snow, and to lay over anything jagged in his path. He kept the flintlock pistol strapped in a holster on the small of his back but had hidden away his pair of cutlasses in a cache under a rock farther away. A utility knife tucked into his belt. Instead, his belt was laden with everything he'd need; A lockpick set, with a half-dozen rakes and tension bars for standard locks. Climbing grips, a finger saw, a 3-foot telescoping wand for testing traps and seeing into safe locks, a small jack for forcing any wall or door joints that should bar his way. Even the belt could have been used to lay over the floor, should there be dried nut shells or broken glass in the path and silence a necessity. Then there was his regular equipment; Eggshell smoke and sand grenades, the former for escaping and the latter for cheating in fights respectfully. The impact spark detonates a mixture of gunpowder, ground ammonia crystal powder, and colored rice powder for a quick getaway. Two kinds of incendiary devices; the first was his explosive tags, which were scraps of paper inscribed with special writing, centering around a detonation glyph to invoke various magic effects - loud noises, blinding flashes, bad stenches, gusts of wind - you name it. The second was folded, "wet-then-dried" parchment filled with flash powder, an explosive material that burns when exposed to air, so is assembled submerged into the folded parchment, then air-dried.
Last but not least were the Hail Marys; A series of tri-blade throwing spikes, enchanted to require healing magic to cease any bleeding from the wound caused by them, and small amounts of Seaforium, which could be daisy-chained for a larger explosion. The explosive tags or flash powder lit the fuse easily enough.
Noxblade hoped it didn't come to that.
He watched as the gnome left out the door and down the road to the main town, and started the ongoing mental timer in his head - he'd had put in the legwork and had paced out the steps for as long it takes a gnome to run to and from Tinkertown. Not including the time it would take for her to find all of the glue bombs (also not accounting for the fact that the actual count was eleven, with a fake twelfth to keep them searching till they pulled their pastel-colored hair out), he had 45 minutes to get in, grab the rocks, get back to camp and out of dwarven airspace (griffin-space?) on his flying machine before anyone got the wiser.
The “camp” was more of a derelict hideyhole. It had once belonged to an old gnome, Tundra MacGrann, who had made a name for himself outside of the engineering world as a yeti hunter and unofficial protector of the pass that connected Coldridge Valley to the rest of Dun Morogh. Many an early adventurer likely cut their teeth with MacGrann‘s help, until the terrible and massive earthquakes of the Cataclysm closed the passageway off, scattering all his equipment and supplies across the mountainside. The gnome survived, fortunately, and rather than attempt to sift through the wreckage, he took only what was salvageable, and left the rest for such a poor unfortunate soul such as Nox. There was enough rope left to set up a tent and secure belongings to the ground during the harsh, nightly winter winds.
In any case, the camp had two advantages; it was high in the mountains, meaning that the regular patrols of the guard would not nearby, and it was located just above and behind the mark's lab, with a small wooded area between the two.
(wip)
- repels down the mountainside, securing a second climbers ring, and continues down to treeline
- lockpicks front door
- Inside is the mini kitchenette, like a hotel room. Icebox, a counter, “stove/microwave” looking thing. A hanging planter of desert succulents in a glass dome. Other succulents in pots on the window sill. Another side is a table and three chairs, with purple pillow cushions. Above the table is a nozzle that appears to be a dispenser for butter, jam, and peanut butter.
- Nox sent the elevator up to the guest room, then mission impossible his way down the elevator shaft (headfirst, supporting himself with his legs and knotted rope) to the hallway that leads to the hallway.
- Nox pops open a packet of flour and uses the dust to reveal the lasers. He doesn't know if the lasers trigger something, or are deadly on their own. Marks where the lasers are and assume that they are "hot" on their own. Course he also assumes that all women are hot and capable of murdering him.
- He pulls out a polished, steel mirror from his bag, and uses the mirror and more flour to walk past them, destroying as few as possible. There are three doors; one along the right wall, in the middle of the hallways, and two at the end. One to the left, and the last dead ahead.
- Nox takes the first door (on the right) to Twizz's Bedroom. He moves on, for lack of time.
- Nox tries the door dead ahead to the Forge. He does nothing here, though considers leaving a surprise here for when Twizz comes back, but thinks better of it.
- Nox enters the final door to find the Lab, opening it quietly to try and negate the creaky hinges. He throws a spike at the mechanical sheep eating scrap metal near the door, into the neck that disables this robot. He scans the workbench, then not seeing the rubies goes to the safe.
- Checks area around built-into the wall for secret keyholes, meaning the turn-dial is a fake. (paranoid much?) Outcomes the sandpaper to sensitizes his fingers and tries to crack the Safe, listening to the tumblers. He gives it a shot, but after failing once he breaks out the seaforium and pops the safe lid open. The rubies are inside.
- Goblin ears are away more sensitive than any other race and hold a special spiritual connection to the safe. His fingers have always been attuned to the way of tumblers... wait what? No dice? Fine BOOM!
- Takes the rubies (fake) and puts them in his back. There is the creaking of metal ass the sheep (He sees the name tag labeled Killewe Mk IV) repairs itself and goes after Nox, with laser pistol mouth and multiple saws hands.
- Que death-defying chase through the lab with the killer robot on his tale. He stops the thing chasing him by putting down the lock of the elevator, so it moves down to the first floor and cuts off the shaft.
- run back to the hideaway, where he hops in his flying machine and escapes
- Goes to give the rubies to Pixi and get paid, when Twiz walks in and proudly proclaims that the ones he stole were faked. A deal is worked out so that Pixi gets the rubies, Twizz gets something else, and Nox still gets paid.
- The End
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