Xcom ER Journal: Breaking into the Big bad alien Bachelor pad.
New alien landing and about damn time too. I need some more alien tech pieces and alloys.
I'm bringing good old Drunky Thomas too to get him some experience. God knows he could use some time away from the barracks and the bottle.
Another UFO in a chinese forest? Yeah, sure, lets go for it. There's a big river right a head of us when we land and the cover is sparse in the initial area. I'm very cautious of having everyone sit around together in one cover after that incident with all the grenades and this cover or lack there of is forcing everyone to huddle together. I don't like it.
First thing we find is a trio of Mutons and of course I'm all bunched up. Feyri makes a shot, faith misses (boo), but then takes a second shot thanks to her colonel level skills and hits, killing the bastard (yay!).
Milno lays down suppressing fire on one muton while the rest of the team moves to engage. The muton he's suppressing fires at him but misses fairly badly, as does may in her reaction shot to the third muton advancing.
Milno, may and Jim combine efforts, lasers and a rocket, to take down the remaining two and we're all alone again. Going good so far, no grenades to the face at least.
Oh god. This ship is huge. I'm just seeing the outside of it now and it's like a flying goddamn hanger. I'm outside a giant door right now and a bit nervous about going in. Mutons and all.
Speaking of mutons, more of them just ran out of nowhere. I'm beginning to think I might be better off just waiting for a while for these things to come find me as I snipe them from a distance. Well, whatever, we'll deal with what we got.
Milno hits one and Faith finishes it on the second shot. Faith and Milno both have to reload the next turn, but luckily Feyri used a "flush" shot to send the only muton we can see running from his cover so we have some time. Next turn finds milno advancing, finding that walkabout muton and putting him down. Easy peasy.
We've brought down 6 mutons so far and there's usually no more then 10-12 baddies in a level, so I'm fairly certain that at worst, we're halfway there.
Now here's a new problem: The area in front of the fucking ufo is absolutely empty of cover. This is bad. Time to Grind our lions and charge for it. Or maybe do something smart and skirt around the side.
I think I'm gonna leave Faith behind on a high ridge to give us some cover while the rest of us wander around to the side. Yeah, good idea tactics brain. Good idea.
And then a Berzerker comes hurtling down off the top of the goddamn ufo and charges at us. It takes a few reaction shots as it runs but its got an almost stupid amount of health so it doesn't seem to mind. During my turn Faith shoots it in the head. And then shoots it in the head again. It's still not dead. Feyri goes in to stun it for capture but the stun fails. Luckily the berzerker does some sort of taunt which sets off Feyri's close range reaction shot and he finally dies. Goddamn.
Faith gives us cover as we move in, slipping along the side of the thing and moving toward the front. We can hear them in there, sharpening their knives and talking about how they really hate seeing humans with their organs on the inside.
As we move in we stumble across another three mutons. Luckily all my men are on overwatch so their triumphant charge becomes more of a horrible massacre as we all just open up on them. Faith double taps the last guy with two rounds to the brain before running to join us. We take a moment to regroup and reload before moving on, deeper.
Oh look, three more fucking mutons. May and Jim and I are getting tired of all these bastards so two rockets later we're done.
Ok, there's still a millon million miles of ship left to explore so lets get on with it.
Energy cores, yep, ok. Disection room? Thats new. Christ this place is big. AH, here we go, two outsiders. And one just dies right away. To...nothing? Cool. The other, however, we stun via feyri's penchant for charging into the fray.
And we're done. Christ man, this was a long one.
No one gets promoted this time, but we do get a ton of alien alloys, so now I can finally start making Titan suits and the like. Feyri, Jim and Milno get titan armor and leave me with a single dollar. Oh well, money is common, alloys aren't. And they really are something to see, fully decked out in that armor.
Next mission is in india, Mission "Secret vengeance" an abduction thing. Welp, time to test out that armor.
We're actually ontop of a skyscraper this time, a giant thing thats still under construction. There are scaffolds off to either side and shipping containers scattered around, along with piles of bricks and huge spindles of wire.
Trio of mutons hanging out in a drywall room across on the other side of the roof directly in front of us. Faith takes one down, may and milno working together take down another but the third runs for it.
Jim runs forward and takes out the last muton but manages to annoy a cyberdisk in the process. It takes Scrambles, Milno and Faith to bring it down, but we get it before it can fire and it's drone vanishes into the dark.
We reload and move up, jim seperated from the main group. Faith grabs some high ground ontop of a shipping container and we move forward with her providing cover. Two mutons spew out of nowhere but overwatch takes one down and a double shot from faith next turn takes the other. We aren't even fired on they're gone so fast.
As we move up we wander into a slight problem: That drone, two mutons and, of course, a Berserker. AWesome.
We all promptly run our asses back and overwatch as the berzerker charges. He takes may's cannon, two shots from milno (special skill lets him do two overwatch shots) a shot from feyri and Faith and still has two health left. He's directly adjacent to milno as the alien turn ends. Feyri tries to stun the bastard but he just resists it so I have milno switch to his side arm and put three in the bastard's skull.
A Muton leaps up on our little roof top and proceeds to just stand around and just stare at us. We stare back. With lasers.
Jim finishes the last one by just charging forward and shooting like he's stopped giving fuck.
Scrambles makes captain and Egypt starts just freaking out. calm down guys. We got this.
Well, the council has another mission for us. Another bastard to rescue, just like the time Ivan died. Oh dear.
Mesk is coming with us this time and I fully intend to have everyone else stand directly behind him. Argenina, mission blind dawn. Alright, lets do it.
The AO is a partially collapsed highway bridge; it's a good place to fight in my mind, nice and thin with little chance of being flanked. But the downside is all we have is cars for cover and they're about as safe and stable as gasoline on a paint mixer.
Apperently the bridge got hit and now the VIP is somewhere down near the end of it ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE FROM WHERE WE FIND IS BODYGUARDS! Goddamn it.
We find the aliens quite fast: Thin men. Goddang it, this isn't even worth our time. There are lots of them, 3 or 4 groups of 2 and 3, but we're just charging in. May takes a splash but it doesn't matter: Faith is up on some high ground and anything she can see is dying, at least one a round, sometimes two. The rest of us are moving in fearlessly. The thin men are retreating, firing and missing 90% of the time. We wipe them out with ease and reach the VIP. Now we just need to bring him home.
They throw themselves at us as we leave, but the few that survive the overwatches don't survive the next shot. Milno gets grazed but it's nothing to him, losing 4 of 19 health.
May is injured for 4 days but reaches Colonel and mesk reaches lieutenant. We also get two new guys, a heavy named Renen and a support named Lukas. They're both pretty high level. Faith gets a nice new Plasma Sniper rifle.
Alien abduction in Australia this time. We land at night, atop a suspension bridge over a dark and foggy expanse of nothingness. Thinmen show up first, followed by a pair of mutons. One thinman goes down as it shows itself and the muton pair fall to Mesk and Feryi for the first and then a single shot from Faith for the second. The rest of the thinmen vanish into the dark. We advance forward and find them a moment later and bring them down without problems.
We take down two more thinmen on the way forward but I can see something out there, a giant fucking health bar. A berzerker healthbar. Fuck.
We move up very slowly, overwatching and then sending someone forward to get their attention.We manage to take down one muton but the berzerker isn't hurt. Time to fix that. Faith brings the thing down to barely any health and then I let mesk finish him, just to make him feel useful. One muton left.
I have Jim injure the last muton and send Scrambles charging in to finish it. He sprints around a corner, flanking the guy and blows him clean over a car.
Mesk reaches Lt. when we reach home and Germany starts flipping it's collective shit.
Go to the Doctor, request puppies.
You head to the infirmary and find the doctor standing next to a nurse. You hold out your hand and say "Puppies"
He stares at you for a long time then goes back to talking to the nurse. Hmm, perhaps a more informative demand would work better.
Thomas swigs the bottle, then goes to find something entertaining.
You swig it up hard. [end:3].
You stumble down the hall and find a particularly funny bit of burnt plastic on the ground. You giggle for 10 straight minutes.
Get the booze, Have the party.
"What kinda booze?" The armory master asks after you voice your request to become intoxicated.
"My dad always said 'Son, if you ever get it into that silly head of yours that messing with a state-of-the-art field manipulator you obtained on a prison ship that you landed on due to participation in highly dangerous reeducation experiments, and while you're drunk, no less, you just take a step back and rethink your life, 'cause that might just be the worst mistake you'll ever make!' Or did he say that about studying accounting? Either way, I'm going to heed those sage words he may have said and leave it for now."
Put the battery back into the manipulator and make sure the slot is sealed like it's supposed to. When that's done, have another sip of booze and head to the armory. Ask the AM this:
"Excuse me, but do you need any help with cleaning up the ship? I just thought I'd offer my assistance, having nothing to do. Idle hands are the playthings of aliens and all that, you know."
You put things away and take another sip of booze [end:4] You hiccup and then head to the armory master and ask her about helping clean up.
"You could clean the halls or barracks if you want, Or anywhere except the briefing room or rec room really. I'm sure there are things out there that could use dusting at the very least."
Lars sighs at its beauty.
"Marvelous."
Store it safely in my locker and return the tools to AM, bowing to St. Milno if he's still there. Go back to barracks and relax.
You put the head away in your locker and return the tools to the armory before laying down in your bunk, humming to yourself and trying to think of a good few hymns you could make or modify for Steve.
"Oh dear that might be my hand."
Withdraw hand, examine it for burns.
Your hand looks fine, in fact everything looks fine. The hissing is coming from behind you, but it's gone now. Huh. You turn around and see nothing new or different. Huh huh.
Pull out a new Bluesmoke if needed, and head to the armory. Count tokens along the way.
Any idea how long reconstruction will take?
(4 token)
You smoke another cig as you walk to the armory and ask about reconstruction.
"Briefing room will be be fast but the Rec room was pretty much completely ruined thanks to the fire. It will take a little longer."
Wake up and go to the armoury. Buy a laser rifle. Get some booze too.
"Uurrrgghhh. I think I need a hair of that dog. Damn big mutt that one was......"
(( Ok, that didn't take as long as I thought, so I'm back in action. Beweaponed, hungover and soon to be drunk again action. So's Sambo as well. ))
You buy yourself a laser rifle and ask for booze. The Armory master asks what kind you want.
"Hm, proto-Altered? What's the difference, exactly? Just speed?
And, when you say risky, risky for who? It's not like the guy I'm talking about has a lot to lose, after all."
Science.
"Well, the Proto-altered strain didn't mess with people's heads the same way. Your friend there is losing it because his particular infection is unfocused. That Commune just jammed a bunch of unformed crap into him and now it's just raging around, trying to improve things and ruining his mind in the process. His eventual madness will just be the result of a body built for combat kicking a constant spray of violence inducing chemicals into his brain. Hell, any sort of genetic manipulation is gonna mess with your head to some degree, but he's gonna be getting it constantly and massively.
True altered is different. Much different, in a sort of way that we still don't understand. See, people who lose it to proto-altered or any other form of manipulation like that will just attack anything, even each other. But the ones who lose it to the altered strain lose it almost immediately, but they also work together with others like them. Hell man, they formed a war machine that nearly wiped us out. That Ivan guy will be dangerous but he won't be smart. He'll just be angry."
He listens to your next question.
"Well, to everyone really. Only way to overcome something like that is to alter him ourselves and in such a way as to make the strain in him incapable of interacting with the new cells; change him so much, so fast that it renders the Proto-altered strain impotent. Thats not easy to do," He scratches his head "Even weakened as proto-altered is, it's no joke. He'd be unrecognizable by the time we're done, if it works. And the danger comes from the fact that in order to do it we'd need to basically throw gas on the fire along with our engineered mutagen. Which would cause his mutation to advance rapidly."
He pauses for a moment and then looks at you a bit harder.
"It would be a flip of the coin which side won out. And if we failed then he would be stronger then before and completely lost to whatever broken mentality that cocktail of deformed neurotransmitters in his brain is pushing him toward. "
"Something that can easily switch from long range to short range, as a scope ma'am." Feyri replied to the AM. "And on another note, do you have any books or manuals I can read about how to use this riot shield, and this arming sword in a useful way - meaning using them properly, in tandem?"
Ask the AM!
"Well, we got what amounts the zoom lens of a good camera, getcha anything from 1 to 10X. As per manuals I think we got something about medieval style fighting"
"I noticed the synth-flesh arm makes it easier to use conventional weapons." Milno says. "Is it due to the synth-flesh itself or something inside it?" he asks the AM.
Milno would rather stay away from the thing, but he was interested in that property...If it was possible to upgrade his arm with the same mechanism, for example.
Ask.
((Ok, answered.))
"Hey Milno," Feyri said, "Did you tell the AM about your victory over the anomaly yet?"
"Does it really matter? Also, since she talks to Steve, she already knows it." Milno shot back to Feyri.
"Mostly it just allows for smoother, more precise aiming and movement."
> TO Jim and Scrambles:
The system I have is a bit of a funny one relying not only on your rolls but the differences in your rolls to determine the level of effect. It will be slower in terms of what is done in every turn, but should SHOULD allow for a bit more in the way of tactics, and hopefully a bit more in the way of feeling like you're actually clashing and crossing swords and not just exchanging blows like rock'em sock'em robots.
No offense jim.
Anyways, you should probably limit your actions to single strikes or actions rather then large multi-action attack plans since only the first action will usually get pulled off, if anything.
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Topic: Einsteinian Roulette On ship Thread: Maurice's One Night Stand (Read 6004226 times)