Big thanks to an Asura friend on Discord for the little Tepkk face!

This entry was made as a reply to a Discord RP of a none Asura Krewe heading into the Depths of Rata Sum and being accosted by Skritt! They also found an Inquest Hazmat suit pilot that had been down there for four days. And the Inquest (mostly) Sees All! So Tepkk was soon 'volunteered' for a team to head down there.

Will be happy to answer questions about Tepkk or Kizz, the Inquest, or even small responses as Tepkk in the comments to other residents of Tyria! This will hopefully be a semi ongoing series as writing as Tepkk and his family has been a good bi daily exercise.

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Tepkk Entry #5
The Skritt pick up

It should come as no surprise to you Kizz since you used to run the PR routes with me that the Inquest loooves to record stuff. Just in case something incriminating happens or they see or overhear something that can help. Of course its to improve our service but the other two are nice benefits.

I did mention a big operation but I'm getting to that.

Microphones and recording devices and nice and common since they tend to be small and can even be programmed to run on very low power to be hard to detect until a key word is said. Harder to detect and all that. But actual video cameras tend to be bulkier since you need a lense and a housing to hold it all. Pretty standard stuff of course. But when you have a large hazmat suit there is plenty of space for a camera.

Such was the case with one of the Inquests many sojourns to beneath the slums of Rata Sum. Down where the trash tends to be thrown and often good stuff too so the Inquest occasionally sends people down there to have a look around. This time however the Pilot, who I honestly hope never finds out that the Managers were aware of what was happening the whole time he was there, ran into not valuable items bit Skritt. Many of them. And they were able to overpower the suit and drag him kicking and screaming from it while the golemites that were with him were smashed as well.

The rescue operation however was not immediatly planned as instead the Managers wanted to wait and see what these Skritt inside Rata Sum did. And four days later after observing the camp and what the Skritt were doing it wasn't the Pilot being in danger that a rescue was finally planned but when they spotted a familiar face show up in the Skritt camp. Especially familiar to me since I've had run ins with him fairly commonly - kind of a Bookah really and I wouldn't want to work under him but he seems to have quite a few who are able to tolerate him.

I'm not sure if you are away of Julius the Branded but he used to be a Manager in the Inquest himself...maybe even a Director? A lot of his records are now far too high clearance for me to look at but he showed up down there of all places with some big eared goon with him too. Wouldn't stop smiling that one. But the two of them weren't dragged in in chains or kicking and screaming but seemed to be escorted inside and even met their leader. Some Skritt with a golem core for a hat, you know how they are. But they showed up and after some talking in the distance the camera didn't pick up they seemed to somehow barter for the Pilot. Unsurprisingly he was pleased to see any kind of rescue even if it wasn't Inquest so he was led out on a leash. Thats as much of the recording as I saw as I sat in the briefing room with several Inquest Aerosol specialists.

Time to use that breathing mask I kept around at least.

We were going to go down there, quickly, gas the Skritt to sleep and then retrieving them and everything else in the camp before Julius tattled to the Arcane Council about its location and got it eradicated. I believe the Director wanted to have Julius discredited more besides just clearing up evidence of our involvement there. A simple plan really I would be going to make sure none of the Skritt died from inhalation of the chemicals. Thank Alchemy I didn't have to do any mouth to mouth.

Also thank goodness that even those living in the slums know about the Inquest so when they saw a squad of us moving through at a light jog carrying a lot of equipment they stayed out of our way. Especially since we were all fully gasmasked up. They let me keep that too so woo extra mask and full face protection. I did hear one of the older Asura scream as he was running away of 'Not again!' when we ran past. I going to try and forget that though as I really don't want to think of what this other time was the Inquest went down to the slums in force - with gasmasks and equipment.

But the Hazmat suit was still transmitting its location and its recording let us know that the Skritt had taken the defensive knockout mines they golemites had been carrying. The tech we brought with us able to broadcast a shutdown message for them so we could keep up the pace and not nap on the companies time!

Before you ask 'why would those be down there initially'? Which actually I'm sure you know being a scientist but its so if we find something good we cant just bring back up. So we mine the location before a proper team can get down there. If we get extra sleepy test subjects all the better. You know the Inquest always looking for a little extra.

But with the mines disarmed and someone left behind to collect them so less evidence of our involvement we were able to find the Skritts little...camp? It was barely that as there was only eighteen Skritt there. There was two unaccounted for from the four days of recording but the male in the pilots hat and the female who took a liking to the pilots sword probably just ran off after seeing us coming. We found no trace of them however besides Skritt blood. So something must have killed them. They had started to chitter and chatter when we arrived at the main door but the Aerosolists were happy to add to the shouts by tossing in some gas grenades. Just sleepy ones mind. And as the Skritt were panicking they breathed in the nearly invisible gas at an increased rate. Once they had started to suffer were moved in. Not to deal with the Skritt but to make them panic more. Make their hearts rate increase and breath deeper as they tried to scream at us. We could have danced in front of them and had the same effect.

Anyway they were soon taking a nice long nap so we broke out the flexible plastic bags and started to shove them inside after some basic restraints. Two per bag but the leader was by themselves. I was the one who got the super fun job of actually shoving them inside after making sure they were still breathing and hadn't swallowed their tongues. Even through the mask I could tell their breath was horrible. Their rat teeth were also not the best as I had to open the snout of each one to check. Gloves are a wonderful invention. Once I was sure they were all still breathing and not gagging on their tongue into the bags they went.

There was an old access hatch that the Skritt had gotten in and that was being welded shut as I dealt with the Skritt. Well after the scrap ramp they had made up to the city was bombed. That would need to be cleaned up eventually but we were just there to clean up the camp. The rest of the team cleaning up the camp and seeing if they could get the hazmat suit working enough to walk out of there on its own steam. It thankfully could even with a leg missing as it more so crawled out. At least its flat back let us plop some of the Skritt bags on it so we had to carry less. For once we all actually worked together as a team and got it all cleared away in under ten minutes.

Then it was just a matter of heading back out the way we came so when the council finally sends someone or a group down to check they will find nothing!

And we were able to secure some old Asura tech and Inquest property so horray. No idea what happened to the pilot though but I doubt the Manager cared too much. A shame really he had to deal with a lot from the Skritt and then that umm...mutant? Juilus got a hold of him. I hope we find him eventually and I hope you enjoyed this little mission report Sis. End recording.