Xcom ER journal: Introductory Spoon bending.
Next mission: Protect some convoy of trucks in china from getting hit by aliens. Ok, thats a bit odd, but sure.
Truck depot of some sort. Shouldn't be surprised should I? Standard response here guys, moving out nice and slow, keeping everyone on overwatch when we can, using cover. Everything by the book.
Faith reveals 6 total sectoids while running for some high ground and we get to murdering. I'm not worried, they're just sectoids after all, but they are lighting a lot of our cover in fire. Fucking c4 packed trucks.
We bring em all down without taking a hit, unsurprisingly, and start moving forward again. Faith is, as usual, infinitely helpful.
We're moving through a gas station and I can't say I'm happy about it. Just what I need is a big fiery explosion.
We find a few more sectoids as we move forward, Faith hopping onto a billboard using her rockets, but we're still far from impressed in terms of adversaries.
Milno is seeing phantoms, keeps reporting contact when he doesn't actually have any. It's a bit annoying.
Finally, in the end, it was just 12 freaking sectoids. Yawn.
Bishop reaches captain somehow. Guess killing crap enemies really taught him something. Oh well, should shell out for a good set of armor and weapons for him. Like faith.
Well fuck it. We're assaulting the Alien base now. Time to go in heavy and hard and hurt some non-people.
We're rolling with Feyri, Jim, Faith, Milno, Scrambles and May. All in titan, save for faith in archangel.
I'd like to bring some of the other guys but...well we need the best of the best right now and I don't want to throw anyone else to the meat grinder.
Ohh god this place is big and I have no idea where anyone is gonna be coming from. we're open on all sides.
I split the team in half, sending three of them down each available path.
We find a sectopod like 10 feet in and immediately run our asses back together and take it down, but milno is hurt in the process. I let him heal himself up and we keep going, putting down a few drones that just wander into the room.
There are what look like giant intestines or something under the ship. I haven't a clue.
Find 3 heavy floaters, two of whom go down before they can even gurgle alien death threats at us. The survivor runs and hides.
Did I mention I hate this place? It's fairly lineir, at least going forward, but it has all these split paths and I know shit is waiting on them. Waiting to flank me. Charlie in the bush, getting stronger. Etc.
We're moving really slow through all this, but I'm patient. Better to find something when prepared rather then when caught unaware because someone charged into the fray. Feyri is still doing that a good bit, but with her cannon she kinda has to.
Feyri finds two heavy mutons like that and faith, bless her, brings em both down. Feyri, it should be said, did hurt one a good deal before faith's shot.
We find two floaters and a muton and berzerker just hanging around. We take both floaters and injure the berzerker, who runs away somewhere, He comes back during the alien turn and lives just long enough to give milno another wack. Fuck, why do all the aliens hate him so much?
I heal him up and basically overwatch while getting faith forward from the rear firing position she was in.
A heavy floater drops down out of literally nowhere into the middle of the squad and is immediately impaled on the plasma fire of 5 team members. Yeah, it dies fast.
We move forward fairly unmolested for a while, just a heavy floater and a few normal mutons and sectoids. They're no problem. Finally, we come to a nice, big, scary doorway. the Doorway that all these paths lead to. oh dear. Well, No time like the present, to die!
Turned out I fucking lied. THere is even goddamn more. MORE AND MORE AND MORE.
Luckily for me there's some nice high ground for us, or for faith at least. Rest of us have to slog through the dark, hoping nothing just comes screaming out of nowhere.
SPeaking of screaming out of nowhere; Hi sectoid commander.Gonna try and capture this jackass.
And then it mindcontrols faith. DAMN IT. Well, Feyri still needs time to get to it, so we're fucked and just have to wait. We all hunker down and hide from faith. Luckily SHe had her laser pistol out when she got captured, so the resulting two shots to milno aren't fatal, but reduce him to a single hit point.
I run scrambles over to try and stun faith with the tazer. Doesn't work, but Feyri manages to stun le bastard alien and we drag it home. The resulting cutscene, however, seems to make it clear that This extra effort was a waste.
Awesome.
Well Milno's out a week, gravely injured as the alien punching bag for this mission. He used all his medkits on himself, just to keep going.
Actually, never mind, looks like we can interrogate the bastard. HA!
Well, we've got the ability to start psychic'ing people up now so I guess I'll have to dig out some room to make the chamber and see who among us is able to bend spoons.
As we do that we catch sight of something VERY big flying around on the eastrern seaboard of The USA so I send in one of our new hybrid ufo fighters with an emp cannon to bring it down. We win, but just barely and send a skyranger to investigate.
We're rolling with the same unit as last time, minus Milno's still crispy ass.
The thing is...for lack of a better word, fucking huge. It takes up the whole AO, we just start on the outer ramps of it. Geez. Well, time to go and die some more.
At the very least it seems fairly liner from what I can see but it's still fucking huge and I hear sectopods in there, man, Fucking sectopods.
We breach the first door and see exactly dick. It's just a little room with nothing but a door on the other side. Ok, least there's no alien rape. Time to breach this next one.
We find a cyber disk in the next room, along with it's drones. We manage to injure it a good deal but those damn drones bring it back up. Well, whatever, faith will deal with this crap. Yeah, she unsurprisingly brings it down with ease and the rest of the drones fall to the rest of the squad. And we're moving forward again. Not sure I like this room, it's big with lots of levels and places to hide. And it's on fire.
We find another cyberdisk on the way forward but it does down without a problem, leaving only the drones. Predictibly, they aren't much of a threat.
So far so good. Only shots coming at us are from drones and they're no real threat, even if they hit, which they don't. I can still hear a sectopod though.
Two mutons and a berzerker leap into the fray as May scouts ahead and Jim rockets the berzerker, but starts panicking afterwards. Jim certainly has a phobia of those things. I run Feyri forward and have her take an alloy cannon shot at the thing from a few feet away. It hits and then thing tries to charge, activating her "reaction shot of enemy gets too close" power resulting in another shot to the face. This brings it down.
The two mutons are taken out by faith, of course, and we move forward. The only way forward here is 2 doors rather then a single central one so I go for the left. Time to breach the door: I get everyone all bunched up around it and then open it.
Nothing. Well, lots of fire burning under these walkways in a way probably no healthy for them, but no aliens.
As we line up to take the next door a cyber disk wanders across the opposite walkway and faith takes it down, but it forces us to wait. I don't want to charge the door without sniper cover.
And no sooner do we open that door then the hordes descend upon us, mutons running out on the opposie walkway and through the room we just opened. Thomas and Scrambles get grenaded but take down their attackers while Jim, may and faith open fire wildly at the 4-6 mutons just charging through the room ahead of us. I'm not sure how many they take out, but they sure thin the herd.
Once everything we can see is dead we move up. We get all of 5 feet before muton elites come pouring out and Jim gets hit. Faith brings down two in one turn. God I love her.
Now, I haven't interogated an elite yet...so I'm going to do something dangerous and stupid. I'm gonna charge one and try to capture it. Feyri manages it, with some help from faith in wounding it, but she gets hit in the process. Damn, this mission isn't fatal so much as mutilating.
We're almost there though, I can see that last big door. Or what I think is the last big door. Head through it no prob, no sign of enemies. Keep moving.
Two doors again, small ones. Heading left again. Two sectoid commanders. Le fuck. Well, time to bring em down. Jim hits one with a rocket and scrambles fires and misses the other. Dang it. Faith doesn't have a shot.
During their turn one of their mind control attempts fails and the other gets Jim.Damn. Well, just have to take the bastard controlling him down and now. I have faith sprint into the open and kill his puppet master while the rest of the team murder the other. And the mission finishes.
No one out, I guess their armor protected them. Awesome.
((Har har))
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Brother Lars squeals.
"O great glorious Lord Steve, Omnipresent master of our fate, joyous deliverer of visions, we bask in rapture of your returned presence! All praise be your name! Forgive our sins and bless our paths!"
Brother Lars hits his head on the wall for good measure. Following that, he calms down a little.
"O great Steve, could you guide me in the creation of a proper book of prayers? Such a thing will guide your children in the conduction of ceremonial affairs."
Ask.
>Well, you could do what most religions do; just modify some existing religion or religions. Although, I'm not sure praying to me is a good idea. I'll probably hear you and tell you you're screwed or maybe electrocute you because it's funny. If you're really want something to pray to you should ask the Armory master about the HMRC Pantheon. "I do believe that the image will never accidentally leave my mind, that's how hard I've memorized it. As to whether I could reproduce a similar picture, I am not entirely sure. Perhaps I can, perhaps I cannot. Perhaps the first painting was a fluke of sorts, the image still fresh in my mind and my hand unusually steady for that single period of time. Perhaps I could paint an exact copy right here, right now. The truth is, I have no idea. Do you want me to paint another one? Or should I forget the whole thing? Either is fine with me, I'd be glad to help out."
The man stands up, straightens his suit and then hands you something from an inner pocket.
"This is a drug. If you take it, you will forget everything you saw. You will forget everything from the last 5 to 7 years, in fact. You will take that now." He takes what looks like some sort of handgun out of the inside of his suit and lets it hang loosely in his hand, slowly flexing his fingers on the grip.
((Also, I like that 17% mortality rate. I'm sure that it's just a coincidence that 1 in 6 is about 17%!))
Sharp as a tack.
Milno shifted his gaze briefly due to the sudden announcement and to the fact May was pushing some strange animal against Feyri. Always weird, all the time.
He turned back to the armory master and suddenly something hit him.
"Are you bothered by my small talk, by the way? I noticed you are pretty practical, and I don't know if I'm being trouble."
Ask.
"Nah, I don't mind talking to people. Well, some people at least." she says.
"Why is the universe conspiring against me... ah, screw it, let's go Tinker."
Rush back to the Rec Room! Be the first in! If there's a line, slap people with my severed hand until they let me go in front of them.
You sprint to the newly repaired rec room and leap into one of the VR machines, screaming "MIIIIIIINNE!"
"Hm, what's this?", Kyle wondered, seeing the game file sent to him.
Spend a moment playing Gorat's game, because I'm curious.
Head to the VR and look up the number of file downloads my little Milno-bot trap has gotten.
Then create a new tinker file, and test the maximum impact the various manipulators can reliably take before breaking.
[aux:6]
You beat the game with ease.
You head to the Vr and try to check your milno-bot trap but it seems to have been deleted. Hmm.
How would you like that damage delivered? Blunt? Shearing? Blade? Point?
"I named him Piecewise!"
Continue poking Feyri with Piecewise the Basilisk.
((I named him that because YEUGH.))
You literally sort of flop the basilisk onto Feyri's visor.
BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF THOSE FOOLISH MORTALS THAT CONSPIRE TO GET TO VR BEFORE ME!
Nice reptile, May.
Return the novella of bioethical philosophy, then head calmly to the rec room and hook into VR. Pull up a laser rifle's lasing mechanism and a generator that would fit in a back mount, plus some fibre optic cable that's strong enough to not be sliced up by the laser inside. Put the generator and lasing mechanism into the back mount, then hook fibre cable from the lasing mechanism into a laser rifle that's had the lasing mechanism and power supply removed and replaced by focusing chambers. Hook up the trigger and test it on a MkIII.
BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF THOSE FOOLISH MORTALS THAT CONSPIRE TO GET TO VR BEFORE ME!
Nice reptile, May.
Return the novella of bioethical philosophy, then head calmly to the rec room and hook into VR. Pull up a laser rifle's lasing mechanism and a generator that would fit in a back mount, plus some fibre optic cable that's strong enough to not be sliced up by the laser inside. Put the generator and lasing mechanism into the back mount, then hook fibre cable from the lasing mechanism into a laser rifle that's had the lasing mechanism and power supply removed and replaced by focusing chambers. Hook up the trigger and test it on a MkIII.
Hmm what a curious concept. It will work, though you'd need to tell me how many focusing chambers you want to use and keep in mind that if you use too many (I believe it's like 6) you start getting into the realm of weird effects, were it penetrates but does no damage.
Also, just a heads up, if that fiber gets cut or even nicked, it's gonna be bad.
"Do you still remember what you saw in detail? Could you reproduce a similar picture?"
(("Why yes! I-"
TERMINATED.))
The intercom speakers crackle and buzz for a moment before
>The Rec room is functional again. Try not to break it.
Brother Lars' screams of pious joy can be heard throughout the ship. Simus's screams of VR addicted joy can be heard as well.
((Queue desperate stampede from half the ship. If there were limited machines we'd have a deathmatch over them.))
Faith twitched at the barb.
"Molested by the Doctor, thank you," she groused. "Plus I hope you're into fangs now," she muttered lower.
"Anyway yeah, guess I should go deal with this..."
Go change into regular clothes in private. Then go to Armory with damaged suit and say I need it repaired.
You go to the barracks and change into casual clothes for the like 5th time before going to the armory and turning in your armor. When the armory master asks what happened you relate your tale of medical malpractice.
"You gave him an idea. Never do that." the armory master says, squinting at the tear in the suit, "When he gets something in his head he has to do it. Right there. To whoever is convenient at the time."
She stashes the suit somewhere under her desk
"I'll get it fixed and return it to your locker."
Jim kept playing that game - not downloading the patch that was surely coming soon - until he beat it.
"Good to see From Software is still around." you mutter.
[aux:2]
Damn it.
"Well, thank you again Doctor. I'll be off then."
Head to the armory.
((Careful Stacy. Make the wrong move, and you may just, disappear.))
You head to the armory as you feel something in you changing, stiffening. Hmm, it doesn't even hurt anymore, wonder why. You thud into the armory, a strange vision of bone armor, thermally protective skin, organic pods and delicate branching heat manifold.
"Guess you were a lot different back then. Hey, how long do people like me or Milno usually live, you know, people with the point-and-shoot type of weapons."
Contemplate possibilities of explosive types.
"Depends on how you use those point and shoot weapons" The armory master replies.
As per explosive types...well explosive typefaces would be possible but I'm not sure why you'd want one.
Start doing sit-ups. Once it starts aching strongly, switch back to push-ups.
As in an exercise bike or that thing where you sort of lay on your back and kick in the air like a spaz?
((I don't see how being 'disappeared' is worse than being sent to a horrible death in a mission. We're going to die, what could they possibly threaten us with?))
((Sent to the Doc and told to do whatever he wanted to do to Stacy for all eternity. As in, not even allowing Stacy to commit suicide.))
Another of Harry's characters who "died" by being imprisoned forever in some sort of hellhole? I see a trend forming.
((I have no mouth and I must scream))
((EDIT: I bet PW loves that story.))
My girlfriend played the point and click adventure of that. I know the story but never read it.
((Since the stream, I'm expecting some horrible Hypercube esque mission.))
It would probably be more like the original cube then cube 2. I like the original cube better. Plus it killed in so much more fun of ways, rather then being submerged in some sort of bad blur effect or windows 98 screen saver.
((There have been worse. *cough*birdemic*cough*))
((Agreed. Piecewise could write a mission based on it and he'd still have better chances of netting a prize for "Best Graphics". Damn acid-shitting eagles, man.))
((Look out! They're floating at us! Also, April 1st mission idea found.))
You ever seen that adventure time episode with the lub-glubs?
>Nod thanks to the AM, take my supplies to one side, sit down and begin a mysterious construction.
Kinda like this, but imagine the diagram is less shitty.
Basically hollow out part of the soles of the boots with the knife(leaving a strip down the middle for added support), cut slots for razorblades and glue them in as above, in columns with the sharp bits facing downwards to allow for painful blade-stomping.
Ensure the razorblades don't quite touch the ground, letting the outer rim of the sole and the intact strip in the middle to take the weight. Also ensure there is enough rubber/whatever material between the blades and the wearer's foot so that the former don't simply push through on impact.
...Actually, on second thoughts,
>ask the AM for a light sheet of some strong, flexible material with which to reinforce the barrier between foot and blades. That would be a rather nasty design flaw.
>Then eat some more candy.
You're gonna need something to cut that metal with.