Campaign
This shouldn't be too hard, Zechariah thought to himself. This is just the entrance. Hell, we don't even know if this place is hostile yet. I doubt anything would pop up this ear-
"DAMMIT-"
And then the flash.
Somewhere, sometime in another universe, Artemis has a smile on his face. He knew that Zechariah would never give up his stupidity, and he was right - even if he did not know it right now.
And Zechariah hated himself for that fact.
Blurriness. Ringing in his ears. Pain throughout his body, centered in his face. And no idea what just happened.
These things are no stranger to Zechariah, unfortunately.
Do a cursory check of myself. How bad are the injuries? If I can move, get myself out of the way and into a safer place - maybe around the other corridor where the others went.
Your injuries... well, you're not facing any immediate risk of dying, so that's a plus, but it's safe to say your good looks are ruined. You're completely blind from one eye (with no idea if it is temporary or permanent) and part of your face and hair have been moderately burnt. The rest of your body has been protected by your clothes, so you should only get some mild burns at worst. And part of the pressure wave was absorbed by the darkness so no blood in the lungs for you. You do need medical attention though, if only to make sure those wounds don't get infected and that you aren't suffering from some sort of internal injury.
You get up with Ike's help (you haven't received any injuries that prevent you from walking but you do feel a bit dizzy) and start moving away from the room that burns faces when you come across Alan.
Wait, either your eyes must be more injured than you thought or you are suffering from a concussion, because you're seeing him holding a glowing pair of bellows and using it to blow air to his face.
Campaign
Ah man, don't tell me the AC's broke on this thing!
Summon a handheld electric fan and try to cool myself off with it while heading left (on the map, toward where Ike and Z...Zak...Zab...Zanzibar are).
You attempt to summon a fan. After a bit of effort, a soft glow appears in the air and a pair of bellows materialises in front of you. The glow does not disappear but instead remains with the object, coming from somewhere inside it.
You shrug, pick it up and start using it to blow air towards your face.
You do some walking and you do some blowing and after a while you come across Zanzibar ((which is an awesome name, by the way, I'd totally name someone Zanzibar)) whose actual name is Zechariah and Ike who is supporting him and is asking you to join him in some sort of quest for great
justice darkness.
Hmmm.... Zanzibar looks different... Like he's done something to his... face? Did he change his haircut? Is he wearing make up? Oh, wait, it's just that half his face is covered in hideous burns!
Pfft. Kids these days. They'll do anything to stand out.
Campaign
"Well, that went rather poorly. In any case, should start making mental notes, I think!"
The place we came in on doesn't seem to have a particular smell, and may have been made around us for some reason. It's a halfway point. Maybe a halfway house?
There's doors that respond to touch and behave like funny glass bubbles. Behind the one to the left is what can best be described as a dark spider singularity. It seems to mean us harm, which is further evidence of its spidery nature. It has already given Jesus a fire and shockwave-based makeover. Also, the shadows vibrate and absorb sound at the same time.
Jesus smells okay, in other news.
Drag the poor guy over to the door on the opposite end of the hallway, and check if that's got solid shadows behind it as well. As we pass Alan, ask him to come along as well.
"Couch-Man! The realm needs your expertise! Follow us to the great darkness!"
You help Zechariah stand up and start making your way towards the other door, until you come across Alan and his glowing bellows.
I'll pause here in case you want to go help Nikolai. But if you do not, then you discover that it does not seem to have the same kind of darkness, it's just a very dark room.
((I've seen enough hentai to know where this is going.))
Nikolai: Campaign
"Get off!"
The monster is behind me. My backpack full of rocks is behind me. Tsar the backpack to either crush it or get it off.
Try to get my knife in hand and hack at it.
Most importantly, escape and run back inside. Leave the bag if I have to.
The thing tries to pull you backwards. It's trying to pull you down, but now that the initial surprise is gone, it is much easier to resist. But it is still strangling you and that doesn't feel very pleasant. Despite your state of mind, you manage to notice that the tentacle-things wrapped around your
CP are emitting a very faint light and seem to be twitching slightly.
You try to enlarge your backpack to repel it or crush it but you can't focus enough to do more than push it away a bit, which doesn't exactly help with the strangling problem. That's not good. Not good at all. You need to get away from this thing, but trying to resist its pull and force your way towards the door is making the strangling worse. Your lungs are starting to burn and you can feel your limbs going numb in the places it has wrapped its tentacles around them.
Panicking, you use one hand to grab your knife from your belt and start hacking away at your throat, not realizing the problem with that action, while using the other hand to try and loosen the "noose". The thing squirms as you hit it but it emits no sound. Finally, you manage to cut the piece wrapped around your neck and take a deep breath. The severed tentacle falls on the ground and starts squirming and jerking like a snake with its head cut off.
You notice there's blood on your knife, mixed with a couple of drops of some sort of yellow liquid.
Irine, Campaign
I follow his instructions.
You stand on the position River indicates, close your eyes and try to relax.
"Do not resist. Do not influence my mind. Just accept my guidance and we will be done soon."You feel River standing behind you and putting his burnt hands over yours, so that you are standing roughly with the same posture.
You start feeling part of his thoughts, part of his mind, like a very slight pressure on your head. You try to not resist.
You feel him think about raising his hands and you try to match him, moving your hands with him.
The presence of his mind in yours is gets stronger. His thoughts more clear. They are more of a mix of emotions and responses then anything interpreted into something coherent. Still, you could, if you tried. There's fear and trust and admiration and joy and anxiety and quandary, connected both to you, your teammates and to the situation in general to varying degrees. And now more fear, connected to your thoughts. It turns to rage for a moment before it is covered by restraint and a glimpse of a memory linked with Theri, another glimpse of a memory, of action, which is followed by a delayed reflection of your own thoughts and some more coherent thoughts on his part that-
Please. I know it is tempting. But do not let your mind wander. Focus on the task.Your hands touch something hot. Not hot enough to burn you, not as hot as fire. You think your resistance will protect you, for now at least.
With the heat comes another presence in your mind. This one different. Unknown. It is asking something from you, but you don't know the answer. You can't even fully understand the question. But he does. The response from his mind comes automatically in the presence of the question, without much thought or emotion.
You parrot the response and the presence accepts it. Now you can feel it telling you more. A lot more.
His mind interprets this as an image, something he saw before, when he was looking into the room and again when he was doing this on his own before. It looks like several things, most of them large and connected to one another. A few are broken, scattered, like someone took several puzzles, disassembled them and mixed the resulting pieces together. All of them comprised out of a jumble of pulsing, jagged links, all of them emitting their own unique, almost musical combination of rumbling with each pulse
The need to act becomes prominent on his mind, followed by the need to know, to see better. He starts choosing fragments based on what his instincts are telling him, urging you to focus on them. You comply.
Each piece feels unique, yet similar to the rest. They all share something like the signature of their creator, reminding you of that same feeling that helps you identify which entity is talking to you. And they all seem to fit together, all the shapes feel like they have guides that help you and him see where they should be connected as well as hints of what they are supposed to do. With his help and guidance, it is very easy to connect them quickly and correctly.
This goes on for a while, connecting the pieces to create something new, something whole. His feelings have become more dull now, since he has focused completely on this. Both of you have fallen into a pattern, found a rhythm. There's only the sense of urgency, the need to fix this, to find out what is going on. And a hint of relief and gratitude related to you.
You quickly realise that whatever it is you're building is supposed to give you more knowledge about what is in this place. Some contain labelled bits of knowledge which he considers to be useless right now. The ones that interest him more are the ones set to receive and process information. He asks you to focus on each of them for a moment as you connect them together, just enough to take a peek. Some show charred rocky peaks illuminated by a dim green light, others emptiness, others speak of areas near this place that have "fallen apart", while others give raw unprocessed knowledge, mostly in the form of numbers and colours lacking any sort of hint about their meaning. You even stumble upon one showing the inside of the room you are in. You also find some pieces that clearly don't belong to this section and help move them to the correct one.
While you do so, you come across something that sparks his curiosity and causes a more coherent thought to form in his mind. A question.
Is this the cause?The piece you're inspecting feels completely different than the rest. It bears no signature, it has no hint about what it is and it doesn't appear to be able to be connected to any of the other pieces, even though it is currently stuck between two of them. Taking a quick peek in it reveals nothing coherent, nothing understandable. Even its shape and texture look different. A bit frustrated but still curious, he urges you to set it aside for now so that you can give it a more in depth examination later.
And then you come to a view of the front door.
Nikolai is out there.
Surprise. Anger. He told them to stay. Why did they not?
There is a yellow sack of flesh hanging from the walls of the canyon by a couple of dozen long thin tentacles.
Fear. Unknown. Danger to his companions?
It has many more tentacles, currently wrapped around Nikolai's body, most of them focused on the pendant around his neck.
More fear. Parasite. Danger. Need to act.
His first instinct is to run and take care of this himself, protect him. But he reconsiders. He won't get there in time. The others should be closer. They should be able to help. He prepares a mental image of where Nikolai is in relation to you and wishes for it to be sent to the rest, along with a message.
Nikolai is fighting outside.It's like Nikolai is moving in slow motion. Or like your mind is moving a lot faster. You can see him slowly bring his knife towards his neck, cutting the tentacle wrapped around it and creating a small gash on his neck in the process.
They might focus on the limbs to try to free him. They might end up hurting him more. Better to kill it while it is occupied. To not allow it to retreat.Another message sent to warn them.
Aim for the heart. Kill it.More will come. He needs to prepare. He needs to defend. It is more important.
He asks you to move to a completely different section and help him assemble that one, resisting a momentary urge to take over your mind to do it directly.
((Alternate name for this section: "Inside the mind of a River" and "Adventures in being a neural router".))
Everyone (except Nikolai)<Nikolai is fighting outside.>You get a mental picture showing you where Nikolai went.
<Aim for the heart. Kill it.>
EDIT: Forgot the Map:
http://i896.photobucket.com/albums/ac165/parisbre56/map_zpse74326d0.pngRiver (NPC) ->
BlackTheri (Tiruin) ->
TurquoiseIrene (Lenglon) ->
OrangeZechariah (DarkArtemisFowl) ->
Light turquoiseIke (Harry Baldman) ->
PinkAlan (Xantalos) ->
RedNikolai (NAV) ->
Green
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Topic: Special People: Mechanical Syndrome (Read 1148046 times)