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It was fun for a long time but towards the end it just started to drag

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Total Members Voted: 28

[WillowLuman]

ninja'd by Wierd
[I'd just go with 23 dead. Less is better, even for storytelling (in this case anyway).]

HugoLuman stirred from his sleep. Something smelled wrong. He looked around.

He'd felt like this once before, when the semi almost plowed into the passenger side of the car where he had been sitting; everything seemed to go in slow motion. One hundred dwarves in various parts of the camp turned around in unison, their eyes flashing red through the rain. Red eyes. Black veins. He had been told about it all when he was on that ship, except about the scent.Damnit, Zanz. I thought you'd let us stay out of this. Oh shit, he must have lost the war.

In the bowels of the fortress, the 3 steel-plated figures stirred. "Sensors detect nanomachines on surface level. It is a rival conversion pattern."

"Illogical. Only cyber conversion provides the correct mode of humanoid existence. Initiating Leader sequence. We strike now."

"Error. Structural integrity of local tunnel system is compromised. The path is blocked."

"We shall commence digging. You two will find pickaxes. This unit's chainsaw was designed for this purpose."

[Gizogin]

[Well, I guess "robot-zombie plague" would describe it, then.  The afflicted dwarves are insane and dangerous, yes?

Also, Cybermen.  Not good.  What's even worse is that, in the collapse, there is a chance the fluffballs were set free.]

[WillowLuman]

[Well, I guess "robot-zombie plague" would describe it, then.  The afflicted dwarves are insane and dangerous, yes?

Also, Cybermen.  Not good.  What's even worse is that, in the collapse, there is a chance the fluffballs were set free.]

There's also a chance that they were crushed under tons of rock, the only thing known to kill them (aside from cryogenics). Perhaps they could be used in a plan that destroys both them and the phyrexians. We don't want to put the fate of the world in jeopardy so soon, and we don't want to reduce our fortress to a crater and start over again. Not yet.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

[‼magic‼ We will destroy it with all divinity in tow.

There is no fucking way anyone is getting into your room for a couple weeks. The dormitories are the most heavily collapsed section, and even your room is buried under tons of rubble. In the process of clearing it, we'll have to built supports for the ceiling to keep it from collapsing further. We ahve to due that for several hundred yards of tunnel, with a total of 8 miners and two potential battlemages (Wierd and Gizogin)

You could have picked a better option for dealing with this. For now, divine magic will cleanse all. And no, you don't get to argue with that this time, because the initial plan is so horrible we should just come up with something completely different ]

Actually, that was not the initial route.  Those were only to be temporary.  The route that it will end with is something different.

[Corai]

-Wait, the Phyrexians are attacking now? Time to read-up and get back ingame.-

[wierd]

[Better be careful. I'm contemplating how to implement a genuine deus-ex-machina on this one. Don't step on death's toes. Just a heads up. ]

[Oliolli]

Somehow it seems to me that any time good fighters are needed, Oliolli is MIA. It's like we have some evil overlord watching over everything, all "Alright, the oliolli is unavailable. Execute Operation Evil Plan!"

[wierd]

[If you want (yellow) oliolli to show up, there's a vial of oliollitis in wierd's hazard suit.... still not analyzed yet. ....wonder what would happen if it got on a phyrexis victim.....]

[WillowLuman]

Ninja'd by wierd

Somehow it seems to me that any time good fighters are needed, Oliolli is MIA. It's like we have some evil overlord watching over everything, all "Alright, the oliolli is unavailable. Execute Operation Evil Plan!"

I wasn't planning on you being missing, but the outbreak occurred earlier than I expected. Sorry.
Some music to set the mood:this or this

The central plaza of the town wasn't far from the temple, being itself in the center area. From the open space in the square, though, he could see what the buildings had blocked from the streets; the tower. It was far off in the distance, probably at least 5 miles, but he knew it had to be tall. Probably hundreds of feet. In fact, it looked almost like a skyscraper. Compared to these buildings, it would seem truly immense, though from here it looked like a tiny needle on the horizon.

The crowds were everywhere, dancing, singing, talking, eating. There seemed to be some kind of festival going on. Oliolli turned around when he heard a loud, ascending shriek, and was surprised to see fireworks shooting up into the sky. The people all applauded , seeing the colorful bursts in the night sky, and went back to their celebration with even more energy...

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

Oh, Wierd, read through the text that you had, in about 15-45 seconds, the nanites would be impossible to stop, because after they spread, a secondary protocal kicks in, and the afflicted areas become metallic.  It would have already been that amount of time, so where it originated would already be metallic, and at some of the joints, spikes of some type would begin to grow.

Edit:I am sure that the gizogin bodies are highly susceptible to the contagion.

Oh, don't do a dues ex machina, because all you need to do is hold on till the situation becomes critical, then I will destroy it all without passing the god-mode sue line.

Edit2: Wierd, if you put that stuff on a phyrexian......just think about that statement...

[wierd]

[Horrible tissue damage is preferable to being eaten alive from the inside. Even if he has to do unspeakable things to the dwarves to correct the infection, he'd do it. Also, there isn't sufficient metal in animal tissues to metalicize the body. There is however, sufficient carbon to create something far stronger, and potentially just as lusterous. Unless the protoforms had an insatiable hunger for raw metal bars and metallic ore bearing rocks, they can't become tinmen on their own. Cyber-synths, with a secondary high-tech nervous system and crazy strength, yes. Metallic, no.]

Weird gritted his teeth.

The infection was cannibalizing the tissue at an alarming rate.

"I'm sorry.." he breathed, then used some of the magic he had sworn to himself that would never use, and would take to his grave. It disturbed him greatly that there was a legitimate use for such a horrific thing, and he hoped the suffering and lives of those who were sacrificed to make it would find justice in its use for good.

Wild colors danced in the misty air as the glove amplified the effect, focused not on the patient, but on the spreading technology corrupting him. Protiens denaturated and fused into useless gobs, metal ions bound forcibly into long chains with silicon and nitrogen, and carbon recombined violently with hydrogen and oxygen in the blood syrum.

Udib screamed in a way that would haunt him for the rest of his life. This magic was *made* to be painful. Unimaginably painful.

Weird tried to tune it out, but it was too terrible. He bent his will on the invasive false-tissue, burning it with everything he could force through the glove, and watched as foul smelling gasses and the stench of burnt flesh hissed out of the now ruptured black veins on udib's sides.

He kept at it. It only took seconds at this rate, but it felt like hours; his head doing gymnastics to overcome the adaptations the micromachines were implementing to overcome the assault. Chemistry was powerful, and he knew tricks the robots aparently didn't.

Switching gears, now that the invasive forms had been forcibly recombined with biological compounds in udib's blood, and rendered into inert globs of amorphous carbon and denatured proteins, he set about trying to repair the horrific dammage to the tissue. In attonement for his use of the sadistic magic earlier, he accepted the penalty of the more profound magical healing; the kind that dealt pain on the caster. The same, horrible, nearly unendurable pain he had just pushed poor udib through.

His wails pierced the night air like a scythe rending flesh.

[WillowLuman]

ninja'd 2x

Oliolli just stared at all the exotic, wonderful, and happy sights. He couldn't tell what anyone was saying, or what the festival was about, but it was interesting. However, being unable to interact with anybody or join the fun in any way, he began to feel a little sad (or a little bored.) Just as he was about to leave to go see more of the city, though, the ground shook. The music stopped, everyone stopped and became silent, looking around. Someone screamed, causing several people to begin to run, but they stopped again when a gunshot rang in the air. One of the helmed, robed guards stepped on a pedestal with his weapon pointed in the air, smoking. His helm had a crest of gold and opals around it. Commander of the guard perhaps? "Everyone, calm down! We've just had another earthquake, no need to panic!"

From the mumblings of the crowd, he heard that "after all, they'd already had 3 that morning." With the threat dismissed, all the relieved people soon began passing drinks and food about again, and the musicians continued their rapid workings around the square. Oliolli then heard a voice in his head. Get to the roof of the main hall. Quickly. He looked at the building in the center of the square, wondering how he could get on top with any speed. Luckily, he spotted a ladder going to the large balcony where several important looking people sat, and from the sides of there stone steps to the roof. Without stopping to look he dashed to the ladder, up and up, and then turned to survey the square. Now what?

[WillowLuman]

[Do the infected keep changing after death? Roead smashed the head of one of them.]

[Eric Blank]

Oh, don't do a dues ex machina, because all you need to do is hold on till the situation becomes critical, then I will destroy it all without passing the god-mode sue line.

[What the F*$% did I just read?

lol

NO.]

Eric was dumbstruck. He was standing there, chatting with the elves and dwarves about finding supplies, when suddenly all fo the dwarves present and two of the elves dropped to the ground and began writhing as in pain, their pupils dilated to the extreme, and veins near the surface of their bodies bulged, black and swollen, spreading across their flesh and in it's wake depositing slightly metallic-looking scabs at random across the surface. For thirty seconds they watched in terror, and then the afflicted stood up like zombies, and launched themselves towards the living. Eric detected them as corpses, devoid of living or supernatural control. They were inanimate automations. He and the elves began to wrestled with them, as screams and blood-curtling inhuman yells erupted from inside the gates. A marksman on the walls began taking potshots at the group outside, his eyes glowing red.

Suddenly, the rain picked up. And it smelled of fish or sickly body odor, before eels began to fall from the sky and spatter across the ground. Eric felt only one desire race through his mind: KILL THEM.

The Goddess was pissed.

[Do the infected keep changing after death? Roead smashed the head of one of them.]

He said they spread the infection as they die. The easiest way to do that is through body fluids. It could be possible that they attempt to vomit on nearby victims, or bleed on them.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

Wierd, I was trying to say that after spreading, the afflicted area is replaced by the nanites, which bond in a formation akin to cells.

They would wind up looking something like this:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Do the infected keep changing after death? Roead smashed the head of one of them.]

No, this evolved form possess the one that killed them, or canibalizes the body and forms their own.  Don't worry, the forumites are immune (except happyface, the injection only prevented it from entering and he already had the stuff in him.)

Oh, Eric, they are not dead, just converted to a different form, so I don't see how that annoyed the goddess of death, since they didn't die.