Campaign: Close to Traveller's Rest
((Since it appears the existence of civilians is important to your plans, let's fast forward a bit so you can gain that information and include it to your plans. In retrospect, I should had probably done that sooner.))
A bit earlier than an hour before soundown, one of the scouts you had left to monitor the situation at Traveller's Rest comes back bearing news. There was a procession of 7 people in chains led from one of the warehouses close to the central plaza to the Spine. They are currently being held at the courtyard outside the Spine with an armed escort.
The soldiers themselves have no idea what that means exactly, they merely have a vague idea that those people are in trouble and should be rescued. A very small number of the more impulsive amongst them wish to attack right now but the majority is content waiting for your plan.
However the mages and the Sword do have an idea about what that might mean. Since this is one of the places where the Dark spell that drains Fire magic and corrupts the land originates, it is very likely those people are going to get sacrificed at sundown as part of some ritual that powers that spell. Human sacrifice releases a tremendous amount of Dark flow, which partially explains how they managed to make the spell so powerful.
Everyone is appalled by this, however only one of the mages believes you should risk attacking now to prevent their sacrifice. Attacking with your full force while the sun is still up means losing most of the element of surprise. The alchemist proposes destroying the Spine with your Artillery, since that would take care of the Dark ritual, at least at this location, however a mage counters that if the attack is successful, it might mean that the civilians left in the town will be liable to be used as hostages or outright executed as no longer useful. One of the mages suggests a team should be sent to secure the warehouse and any other places they're keeping civilians and either fortify it or lead the civilians away from it, however if said team is spotted before they're ready they'll likely come under heavy fire and cost the rest of your army the element of surprise. In the end it might be better to just wait for the sacrifice to happen and for Irine to clear its effects before attacking, as that would give you the best chance for a quick victory and rescue of the civilians. On the other hand, if the enemy already knows where you are and are baiting you then it might make no difference when you engage them.
<You're right, it's risky for me to try to cast outside my element, and that I should work my way up slowly. The problem is I didn't ever do anything small-scale that way. I've only got large-scale memories to work off of - really large-scale. Do you think it would be best for me to give up on Creation magic entirely?>
The Sword is silent for a long time. If you didn't know better you'd think it didn't hear your question.
<Triplesword? Are you OK?><We are fine. We are simply facing some difficulty coming to a decision. We are certain that in your current state you would be highly unlikely to be successful in casting a spell through your memories, at least not without a powerful Creation power source. But it might be worth cautiously pursuing Creation magic. Were you to be successful in even the most minor of ways it would open countless possibilities to you. We are having difficulty deciding if those possibilities are worth the risks.>"The catapult idea could work if we give someone a parachute or wingsuit...maybe my tsar water armour can absorb the impact? No, still too inaccurate and risky."
"Aww... You're no fun."((Imagining a blob of watery Nikolai going splat like a water balloon on the side of the airship is immensely amusing to me for some reason.))
"Maybe we can modify a crossbow into a grappling hook harpoon gun thing that can help us reach the airship without going up the spine?"
"Unlikely. I find it difficult to believe that someone will be able to shoot a crossbow bolt up there reliably, have it attach to the ship reliably and then quickly climb all the way up there without getting tired or falling.""Don't dismiss the idea so quickly. Maybe a normal crossbow won't be able to shoot a rope up there reliably, but what about a Tsared crossbow?"
"Hm. The eastern sky pirates are known to use giant harpoons to keep vessels from escaping. Most airships are quite light, after all. So if all we need to do is keep it in place...""Yes, that's right! We could even try to drag it down onto the ground and board it!"
"But to hold on to the airship you'd also need to have strong chains or Tsared rope and I find it hard to believe that all that weight will reach all the way up there.""What if you used a long piece of string? That's lightweight enough and it should reach the airship no problem. Then when the bolt is attached you just Tsar the string and turn it into a rope."
"Yes, that would probably make it both lightweight enough to reach the ship and sturdy enough to climb it.""And then you could just untsar the rope and use the shrinking rope like an elevator!""You really have a thing about flinging people into the air, don't you?"
"What can I say? I always liked flying.""Yeah, but isn't flinging more like falling than flying?"
"Hah! And flying is nothing more than falling with style!" she declares, raising her fist.
The mage shakes his head.
"Still, her idea has some merit. The Triplesword has shown me a memory of one of its wielders using it to perform a similar feat. If someone helped me get it up there, then it should be able to drag others to it.""So you propose we just put the Sword in a Tsared crossbow and shoot it at the ship?""I'm not sure. It's an Order spell, the Chaos energy from Tsaring might interfere with it. I will have to be one of the first the Sword drags up there. If the spell misfires due to the Chaos energy then I might lose the Sword or get injured and become unavailable for the rest of the fight.""Isn't River like crazy strong? Couldn't he throw the Sword up there?""Maybe. If he's healed enough and is willing to help.""Or we can capture a glider and use that to fly to the airship. Their airfield is close to the edge of the city."
"Yes! We should do that one! I always wanted a glider! Use them to get a team up there and save one for me.""Oh? And how exactly are they going to pilot them?""Yeah, it's not going to be easy to learn how to fly in the span of a few minutes, let alone fly well enough to land-"
"Oh, come on, it's not that hard!" the alchemist complains.
"You strap the belt around your waist, then use the foot pedals to control the Wind enchantment and the hand-levers to control the wings. Then all you have to do to take off is align the pedals and trigger the-""Wait a minute, you know how to pilot a glider?"
"Why yes, of course I do!""Even if you know the theory, surely that does not compare to-""Not just the theory! I got to fly one in the Sovereignty's Mages' College! Fully trained, ace rank!" she says proudly.
"Or I would be, if they'd actually agreed to train me." she adds a bit more quietly.
"But it's basically the same thing." she continues dismissively.
"Wait, so if they didn't agree to train you, then how-""I took one.""You took one?! Just like that? Without permission? Without a trainer? Without any safety-"
"Wow, you sound just like the guys at the College when they finally caught me. 'Blah blah safety, yada yada spy, can't let a little girl do these sort of things, etcetera etcetera.' Then they go ahead and ban me. I say if they didn't want me taking it then they shouldn't had made it that easy to take.""I still don't believe how someone so self-obsessed can do something so reckless. And survive."
"I'm telling you, I knew what I was doing! It was all according to plan! Why won't anyone believe me?""You are confident in your flying skills then?""One hundred percent!""So you wouldn't have a problem flying someone to that airship?"You can see the alchemist struggle between her desire to gain a Glider and her desire to avoid combat.
"I suppose I could drop one of you off, if you really can't do it yourselves. And only if I get to keep the Glider, I need to finish researching it. But I'd rather much train you and have you bring me one, it's really not that hard.""Maybe for you it isn't."
"We could try tunneling under the city. Set bombs or come up right next to the objectives. Probably way too slow."
"I agree. We'd need an Earth mage to do that quickly.""Could just sneak quick and quietly kill anyone we see before they raise alarm."
"If we have nothing better to go on then yes, that's probably what we should choose."
"I think we've basically settled on trying to sneak in, and now the question is who do we send to do it. If direct action is necessary, the infil team can just commwire for it."
"I'll go. I can conceal us and restrain people from a distance using my shadow powers."
"From what I understood from your previous descriptions your shadow abilities' strength is dependent on the strength of the shadows existing in an area. The Dark magic corrupting the town might lead to a supercharging of your shadow abilities once you enter it, similar to what happened at Road's End. Be sure to take that into account when using your abilities."Yes to building trebuchet.
Yes to potion. I promise to put it to good use. Maybe to tsar and repair the wreckage of the airship if we end up destroying it.
Yes to prototype gun improvements.
The recruits do a very good job following your instructions and converting a wagon into a trebuchet. They leave it disassembled for now, waiting for your instructions on where to deploy it.
You get the potion. You are warned several times to drink the entire thing in one go the moment you break the bottle's seal and to not let it break or spill at all.
Gun improvements basically amount to adding a wooden skeleton and stock to make the tube easy to grip, a spring-based hammer linked to a trigger and some simple sights (though you don't have enough time to make them very accurate). You also prepare some bullets and gunpowder packages. With all that you manage to transform the prototype into a front-loading musket. It will be good if you have to penetrate heavy armor at medium to close range but for most other uses your crossbow is probably better and easier to reload.
Campaign: Alan's Magical Adventure
((I love how quickly you adapted your character to this new situation.
Don't worry about the frequency of your posts, I'm not posting that quickly either. Focus on your life, that's the most important thing.))
((If there's one thing I really like about playing Alan, it's that he's the most chill, go-with-the-flow type mask I've donned in quite some time. Put in pretty much any situation, no matter how bizarre, he generally won't blink, just find something to work off of as a reference point and go from there. Also I'm somewhat adept at playing bad guys from all my ER experience, though mayhaps less megalomaniacal this time around >:3))
Alan, Helpful Princess
Hooray, I did a good thing! Does Ammie want me to do anything in particular right now? If not, I'll go visit my new friends in person - phone calls are nice, but it's always better to catch up face-analogue to face-analogue!
You go visit your friends in person. It's quite a long distance, going all the way to the top of one of the towers of the Mage's College. But it's also the best place for it, since your friends like to fly. Luckily you don't have to climb all the way up there, you have permission to use the elevator.
People greet you along the way. They are all very friendly. But sometimes you wonder if they aren't friendly because they like you but because they want to use you or your step-father. Or maybe because of that special make-up mum gave to you. But you don't let such thoughts bother you. Even if they don't like you now, there's nothing stopping them from becoming your friends in the future.
You reach the top level and enter the room. Rays of sunshine flow through the large open windows, showing you the great City built in the corpse of the big dead bird. If it weren't for the occasional column, it would feel as if you were in a floating platform. This old Glider runway is the best thing you could had asked for. Your own little palace in the clouds, perfect for you and your friends to fly out of. All your friends greet you quite loudly.
At the center of the room is the Important Thing. You know that you must not mess with the Important Thing. Only your mum may approach the Important Thing. Knowing you can't play with it, you decide to leave it alone for now.
First you check the flows to make sure your friends have all the food they need. You make sure to give them a balanced diet, full of every color of the rainbow. It's the best way for your friends to grow strong and become better than all the others. But each one needs their own personal diet program, selected with care. For example Cherubim need mostly yellow, purple and green, while Ophanim need a mix of yellow, purple and grey. You must be careful with how much you give them, you don't have too many.
You walk amongst your friends, checking their progress. Their gestation is almost complete. They're ready to go and be free, no longer carried in your pockets. A few failures must still stay in your pockets until next time, but what can you do? These things happen.
And then you have your latest and most expensive friend, the rarest friend one can grow. You bet this will make you extra popular. You approach it and place your arm on its gigantic form as it shudders and begins to move, spreading its great wings. You climb on it as it approaches one of the windows. You think they'll call this one Seraph.
((Please stand by for timeskip.))
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Topic: Special People: Mechanical Syndrome (Read 1151434 times)