What Lies Beneath 5 - Breaking the Beast

*Bota is a giant spider's chew toy as he gets thrown from spider to mouth to floor (but not before unloading some lasers into . Droo falls through a floor grate. Sparky gets his leg blown off. Jowkazza jumps onto Balancesheet and starts ripping things apart. Dr Evazan gets wrapped in spider web and is super poisoned. Rusty runs over a bunch of spiders as the dream of the land speeder comes to fruition. Tek slices some spider legs. Katira sticks an explosive knife into Balancesheet. Balancesheet lies unconscious and Jawa Jimmy and Tek begin talks of interfacing with the spider's scomp link.*

## **Previously**

*Our heroes entered into combat with the arachnoid creature Balancesheet in an attempt to lay to rest the New Republic fears over the lethal K2 Virus that has recently been spotted on Cruscant, only to find themselves apparently outmatched by the endless flow of spider “nodes” at the monster’s disposal. Despite beating off the first wave of nodes and relieving Balancesheet of an eye, Bota lay wounded, wrapped in webbing, and Katira was held aloft in Balancesheet’s arms. The unprecedented Jedi power of Droo managed to turn the tables as she freed her friends and wounded Balancesheet. Now having discovered that this new virus is more sinister than previously thought, can our heroes take the upper hand below the lowest levels of the galactic capitol, or will we all become cybernetic slaves to the New Order?*

## **Recap**

### **Last Push of the Mobile Nodes**

The remaining score of cybernetic spider nodes rise up on their spindly legs like something out of Katira’s nightmares, then proceed to move in disturbing unison toward their respective targets. Sparky has one of his arms ripped clean off, dropping to the ground in a hail of sparks as the spiders begin to close in on Jawa Jimmy. On the other side of the landspeeder, Rusty succeeds in fending off two spiders as Jowkazza shrugs off the attacks of two more.

In the center of the lair, Droo smiles as she takes a defensive stance toward the incoming spiders, but suddenly vanishes from view when the grate beneath her opens. The remaining nodes on the ground turn their attention to Tek, but are left in pieces when the Jedi defends himself with his lightsaber.

> "*So you chop off all the left legs on one spider, then repeat the trick on this next one.*"
> ― Jordan
>
>

> "*It’s okay. It’s all right now.*"
> ― Jawa Jimmy
>
>

After being wounded and losing his jetpack, the last bits of Balancesheet’s web still smoldering and falling off, Bota is just coming to his feet as three nodes move in for the attack. Though the bounty hunter fights valiantly, the third creature manages to pass his guard, stunning Bota with a blow to the gut. Adjacent to Bota, Katira manages to fight off four nodes, killing two in the process.

On the ground, Rusty runs back toward the entrance to Balancesheet’s lair. Climbing atop the speeder left behind by Katira, he accelerates directly into the wreckage of the landspeeder littered with the crumpled bodies of nearly a dozen of Balancesheet’s nodes, forcing the vehicle the final distance into the lair. On top of the speeder, Jawa Jimmy stumbles for a moment from the impact, then draws his ion cannon to shoot the two nodes that disassembled his astromech. As the spiders collapse from the burst of energy, Jimmy continues to pull the trigger in a rage, discovering that he has just run out of ammunition. With more spiders climbing around the landspeeder, Jimmy falls back further and jumps on the remaining speeder bike.

Jowkazza runs in the opposite direction, straight toward the still smoking leg that the being is holding gingerly off the ground. Leaping up, the Wookiee climbs up the leg before jumping onto Balancesheet’s back adjacent to Katira. He wraps his powerful fist around the nearest control strand coming out of the spiders abdomen, and rips it out with a terrifying roar, causing the functional spiders in the room all begin to emit a high pitched whine.

### **Hard Pill to Swallow**

The bound figure of Evezan struggles and moans out in pain as he continues to be pulled toward Balancesheet, a few curses being understandable through the web.

> "*Nice. Short, sweet, to the point… and painful.*"
> ― Tek
>
>

> "*You’re really serious about that Jedi code of ethics, aren’t you Tek?*"
> ― Katira
>
>

> "*What? I didn’t say that. It was an echo from the dark side of the force.*"
> ― Tek
>
>

From beneath Jowkazza, Bota, and Katira, Balancesheet convulses violently in an attempt to remove the heroes from its back. Jowkazza is unfazed, and Katira manages to hold her ground by driving her daishō into the spiders back, but the pair look on helplessly as the bloodied form of Bota is knocked off his feet, tumbling like a rag doll directly into Balancesheet’s mouth. The loquacious beast contemplates spitting Bota to the ground in order to launch into another speech, but decides to bite down instead.

As Balancesheet finds that its bite is insufficient against Bota’s armor, he shoots a strand of webbing at Tek in hopes of disabling the Jedi before he can strike again. A winded Tek manages to bring his green blade between himself and the incoming projectile, and the burning and shredded bits of webbing splatter across the body of the slicer harmlessly.

On top of the spider, Katira slices through two of the node control strands, then drives an explosive charge into the gaping wound that was once Balancesheet’s eye. Balancesheet shouts out in pain and attempts to speak, but only a muffled noise makes its way out due to the bounty hunter in its mouth. Around the room, the small nodes begin to twitch in response to the broken strands.

> "*You can stop now. Release Evezan, give us the antidote, and **gently** put my friend down. Or I can blow the explosive that I just stuffed in your ugly… **ugly** eye. That thing is getting gangrene by the way, because I did **not** wash my hands on my way down here from the sewers.*"
> ― Katira
>
>

Balancesheet begins to mumble, then pauses. In a moment, the node adjacent to Katira turns and speaks for its master. Asking for a clarification of the terms for his surrender and hoping to make his way out through a loophole, the spider refuses when it is made clear that he will be taken by the New Republic. Reticent to blow the explosive charge while Bota is directly adjacent to it, Katira ends up accomplishing little beyond stalling for time.

As Balancesheet is distracted in negotiations, Tek decides to take on a new kind of slicing. Moving quickly, he severs the remaining flesh holding Balancesheet’s wounded leg together, then cripples another leg, with the stunned Balancesheet screaming out in pain through the node atop its back. Inside the monsters mouth, Bota wriggles around and adjusts his cybernetic eye to low-light vision until he has a view down its throat, then fires his blaster.

The rest of the group is caught off guard as the blaster bolt hits home inside Balancesheet. The beast shakes violently and roars out in pain, causing Bota to tumble from its mouth and onto the floor. Jowkazza and Katira barely manage to keep their footing as Balancesheet violently shudders, then slowly slumps onto the ground. Around the room, the remaining functional nodes suddenly lose their aggressive stance and wander more or less aimlessly about.

### **Twisted Metal**

Finally, Rusty manages to force the landspeeder into Balancesheet’s lair, and the screeching of metal on metal comes to a stop. The room becomes eerily silent, and the gargantuan form of Balancesheet - obviously unconscious after Bota’s shot - comes to a final rest. The quiet \*tap tap\* of cybernetic spider node legs on the hard floor of the starship echoing through the room is the only sound as Katira and Tek stare at the monster, and Jowkazza labors over Bota with a medpac.

> "*Jawa Jimmy, do I wait for you, or do I just punch it?*"
> ― Rusty
>
>

> "*Punch it!*"
> ― Jawa Jimmy
>
>

Taking no notice of the sudden change in ambiance, Rusty abandons his bike for the landspeeder, then slams on the accelerator. Balancesheet’s nodes, bereft of any intelligent control or ill intent, make no move to avoid the incoming vehicle and are summarily devastated by the vehicle. Not one for half measures, Rusty pulls hard on the controls and turns the speeder at the last moment. Avoiding the far wall, the speeder comes to a crashing halt when it collides with Balancesheet’s last remaining organic leg at full speed, snapping it in half. The unconscious form of Balancesheet moans out in pain, but makes no sign of coming around to consciousness.

Atop the remaining unused speeder bike, Jawa Jimmy coasts smoothly into the room. Looking for some amount of revenge for the damage to Sparky, he fires the bike’s blasters at the creature’s large cybernetic leg. Though little to no damage is done, Balancesheet shifts unconsciously in response and pins the bound Dr. Evezan underneath himself.

Finished kicking their opponent while he is down, Jimmy and Tek take a moment to look over the twitching body of Sparky. By working together, they manage to isolate the damaged equipment for the shattered leg and bring the little astromech online - though someone will still need to carry the droid. As they do so, the pair begin to discuss the potential of slicing into Balancesheet for information leading to a larger margin of success on their stated mission from the New Republic.

> "*So next time we want to start with trying to slice to get information out of Balancesheet, and then explore the rest of this place?*"
> ― Jordan
>
>

> "*I think we should start by trying to drive the speeder through another door. I mean, it kind of worked out really well.*"
> ― Jowkazza
>
>

## **Featured Characters**

### **Our Heroes**

* Bota Zi
* Jawa Jimmy
	+ Sparky
* Jowkazza
* Katira Eve
* Roostan Steele
* Tek Krodak

### **NPCs**

* Cornelius Evezan
* Balancesheet

### **Mentioned**

* General Ledger
* Droo Vos

## **Inventory**

* -1 leg (Sparky)
* +Balancesheet webbing material (Jowkazza)
* +"Spider Killer" Wookiee Scout merit badge

## **Notes**

* -2cp to defend Balancesheet’s web (Tek)
* -3cp to wriggle in Balancesheet’s maw (Bota)
* Jawa Jimmy finishes the mission with a repaired Sparky, but still needs to reload his ion cannon

## **Quotations**

> "*Maybe Droo will just stay there and concentrate.*"
> ― Tek
>
>

> "*Concentration leaves you completely open to attack.*"
> ― Katira
>
>

> "*Not if… it’s done in a dark corner… somewhere.*"
> ― Tek
>
>

> "*Where nobody can attack you. Yeh, then you’re not open to attack.*"
> ― Katira
>
>

> "*That is the Jedi way.*"
> ― Tek
>
>

> "*No, I’m a pacifist! Just leave me alone!*"
> ― Rusty
>
>

> "*I just come here to concentrate.*"
> ― Tek
>
>

> "*That’s a melee parry.*"
> ― Jordan
>
>

> "*No, it’s a Katy Perry.*"
> ― Ilya
>
>

> "*She’s a firework.*"
> ― David
>
>

> "*You slash all four left inner thighs and you cleave off the limbs, you kill it.*"
> ― Jordan
>
>

> "*But in a humane way, like I filet it.*"
> ― Tek
>
>

> "*No, not really. It’s legs are still twitching after you cleave all four of them off.*"
> ― Jordan
>
>

> "*But it’s a robot, so there’s no pain. Right?*"
> ― Tek
>
>

> "*It’s not a robot. It’s like a cyborg spider.*"
> ― Jordan
>
>

> "*Like a half cyborg. You’re all the same to me, spiders.*"
> ― Tek
>
>

> "*You also have a cyborg implant…*"
> ― Jordan
>
>

> "*I know, but… I’m the only one allowed to hate on my own kind here.*"
> ― Tek
>
>

> "*Just jetpack out of there, Bota.*"
> ― Tek
>
>

> "*He doesn’t have his jetpack. It blew up on the ceiling.*"
> ― Jordan
>
>

> "*Just… take the rocket boots back from Katira.*"
> ― Tek
>
>

> "*Back?!*"
> ― Katira
>
>

> "*You can try to get out while he’s trying to talk, Bota. You have an advantage now.*"
> ― Jordan
>
>

> "*He’ll cut you **sum** slack.*"
> ― David
>
>

> "*I’m not even going to bother to roll that, that would be embarrassing.*"
> ― Luke
>
>

> "*Balancesheet lets out a growl and a gurgle, and Bota you smell the stinky, putrid spider breath and are covered in some spider bile that comes up.*"
> ― Jordan
>
>

> "*I’ve had worse.*"
> ― Bota
>
>

> "*I mean, we’re not going to leave without turning you over to the New Republic. I’m just offering to let you live.*"
> ― Katira
>
>

> "*We can’t have giant spiders living in the bowels of Coruscant.*"
> ― Bota
>
>

> "*Especially not spiders that can manufacture civilization ending viruses.*"
> ― Katira
>
>

> "*There comes a times in every spider’s life when they’ve hit a wall.*"
> ― Bota
>
>

> "*What’s the matter, it’s just a side hobby?! Leave me to my viruses.*"
> ― Tek
>
>

> "*I’m just the newspaper in this analogy, Balancesheet. I can be the newspaper, or I can be the glass cup taking you somewhere else.*"
> ― Katira
>
>

> "*Alright, I’ll drop your friend, give you Evezan, give you the K2 virus. But I’ll just stop fighting you, I’m not surrendering to anybody.*"
> ― Balancesheet
>
>

> "*I mean… you can start by dropping my friend, and then surrender later…*"
> ― Katira
>
>

> "*Bota, you still have your flamethrower, your grappling hook…*"
> ― Jordan
>
>

> "*And a yo-yo, and 10 lanterns.*"
> ― Tek
>
>

> "*I just throw the lamps down its throat so I can see.*"
> ― Bota
>
>

> "*Jonah’s down there.*"
> ― Jordan
>
>

> "*You sellin’ lamps in there?*"
> ― Tek
>
>

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