Campaign
Zechariah kept moving around, trying to multitask but failing to do so. The best he could do was try to salvage the wall of crystals, but even then, the wall was diminishing. He had little room to observe his surroundings, but he could see Irine fall to the floor, her fires no longer under her control.
"Irine!" he shouted out to her. This was only going to make things harder, as he no longer had her to provide primary defense against the parasites. He fought his instinct to drop the shields and assist both her and River, and continued to mount the defensive wall, trying to keep the portal from spewing out more monsters.
He began shouting out to his teammates, trying to get them to help him with his endeavors. He wasn't sure if they were even going to listen, but he had to try. "The portal is unstable! Nikolai, I need you to help repair the crystals and keep them strong. After that, I need you to back away or hit the floor immediately. Try to help Irine out if you can. Ike... keep doing what you're doing. Alan, get River out of here and help Ike move us out of here!"
He had a plan. It was a simple plan, and it wasn't a particularly good one. But it was a plan.
After Nikolai (hopefully) repairs my shields and gets out of the way, manipulate the wall so that it breaks up into sharp, jagged shards. Manipulate the new shards so that they form a maelstrom, spinning around the portal and killing any parasites that dare to touch the spinning shards. If possible, try to manipulate the Shadows to choke the portal, keeping it in a state of neutrality or collapse if I can.
"Understood."
Get to Zech's barrier as fast as a cripple can. Repair and strengthen it. Then retreat.
((One of you is either misunderstanding the size of the room or the range of Nikolai's powers. Probably my fault for not making a new map. Sorry, busy. Anyway, I'll just modify this action a bit to make it possible in a timely, efficient and non-suicidal manner.))
Zechariah creates a tiny shard of light in the hallway for Nikolai to work with. Nikolai reaches out and touches is it. It's something new, touching light. It doesn't feel like anything he has touched before. Hard, yet smooth. Slightly warm and vibrating but also cool and hard. It's confusing his senses. But that's not really his thing. He's not a wizard type like those other guys. He doesn't make cool things and have them fly around. He's concerned with one thing most of all.
"That small thing? Hah. That's not going to impress anyone. Here, I'll make it bigger for you."He closes his eyes and focuses his power on the shard. And for a moment he feels so much stronger, like he is no longer alone, like there is someone helping him. He pushes an enormous amount of power into the tiny shard, more than he knew he had. The tiny shard starts glowing with a purple glow, dim at first, but soon it's bright enough to outshine the portal, if only for a moment. And then it starts growing, irregularities appearing on its surface, developing into sharp spikes shaped like decorative crystal flowers and vines. A network of microcracks develops inside of the crystal, connecting points across its surface with irregular, fractal-like patterns in its centre that are pulsing with purple light. The shard keeps growing and growing until it is almost the size of the doorway, the spikes threatening anyone near it.
"There." Nikolai says with a huff.
"See? That's the way you do it."
"Now if you don't mind, I'm going to take my leave."And with that, he falls into Theri's arms, unconscious. Man, you're dropping like flies.
Zechariah feels like he suddenly got a bunch of power that he has no control of. It's just there. He can move it around, but that's it. He can't shape it or change it.
Furthermore it appears as if the shard is unstable. He can already feel the power inside it waning, while at the same time the shard is cracking, deteriorating, decorative spikes falling off and disappearing. He has to use some power of his own to keep it together. Still, this is a massive increase in power. And he's not going to let it go to waste.
"Thanks Nikolai." Zechariah says, even though Nikolai can't hear him. The sound of an explosion as a slab provides more power to the portal turns his attention back to the action.
"You did good."He opens up his shield and lets the parasites inside get out, lets them stream towards him, drawn by the massive build-up in magical energy.
"Yes, that's right." he says as he watches them getting into position.
"You know you want me. You know I'm tasty. Come at me. I'm over here."He waits until all of them are in the right position, ready to strike. And at the right moment, he swiftly extends his arm and points his staff towards them.
"Now catch!"And with that, the massive shard flies forward, slicing up everything in its path. Every time it hits something, it doesn't slow down, it doesn't meet any resistance. Instead it ablates, as every piece that stabs something breaks off and then evaporates in a puff of purplish smoke and crystal shrapnel. By the time the shard reaches the ever expanding portal, only its core remains and everything in its path has turned into pools of citrine and black liquid interspersed with chunks of white flesh. Its work done, Zechariah lets what's left of the shard fall apart. And it does so. Explosively.
The thing detonates into a flash of purple and white light, sending crystal shrapnel flying everywhere around it. You manage to deflect most of them away from you and anything important. In its place is left a chaotic spider-web of wispy purple lines, slowly expanding in all direction, slightly distorting and reflecting the light going between them, like a prism.
The light of the portal is disrupted by the explosion. It is pushed back a couple of metres. It wobbles and tries to resist for a few seconds before it collapses into a single point and then disappears, like an old CRT TV being turned off. In its place there a massive creature. Parts of a massive creature, to be exact. Mainly giant tentacles and some pieces of flesh and yellow fluid. They hover in the air for a moment, before they fall to the ground.
The three claw-like things around the portal and a circular piece underneath it
you couldn't see before are spouting small clouds of fire ineffectually and flickering like the lights of a pinball table. They appear to have been damaged by the explosion a bit, light escaping through a couple of small cracks in them. But they don't appear to be in danger of exploding any time soon.
Whatever happened probably disabled or drained the portal, at least for now. And for whatever reason it doesn't look like it's recharging with those slabs. Looks like you bought yourself a few seconds of respite.
It might be a good idea to use that time to deal with some other problems. Like helping your teammates. Or taking care of some of the parasites left in the room. Or doing something about that slab that just fell to the floor due to the explosion and is about to explode itself, the one I had previously mentioned was about to fall down with the slightest disturbance.
Not that you have to. Just saying.
((Please excuse any liberties I took with your characters' dialogue. I just did it for dramatic effect. Assume it didn't happen if you find it objectionable.))
((As a note: I like River :I
And from what I remember, NAV, was that Theri was separated from everyone...
Sorry all x_x I'm seriously thoroughly enjoying this though D:))
"Theri, can you please help me to Zech's shield? I'm having trouble walking."
"Will do!"
Leg it, and get {NAV's character} to safety!
After Nikolai uses his ability and falls unconscious, you drag him further into the hallway Ike is in, hoping he'll be safe there.
Campaign, Ike!
Take a look inside the portal room again. Is drama still in progress?
If not and nothing challenges the assumptions that immediately follow, fetch bag from Rover's vicinity and bag Irine for safe transportation using the Bag of K.O. while Alan takes care of our kindly host.
If yes or something challenges the assumptions in the preceding action, secure the hallway with sword in hand, like one of them knights!
((Kinda too far away for you to do that. Also it would probably be very dangerous. And you'd probably have to knock Irene unconscious (which wouldn't be really hard in the state she's in). So given the risk vs reward here, I'll assume you don't want to do that. It would probably be easier to just empty your backpack and put her in it or say you retroactively grabbed River's backpack and use that.))
Brave sir Ike starts boldly walking through the hallway, sword in hand, not afraid to die.
Bravely taking to his feet he goes for one of the parasites, only for him to miss and hit nothing but air. The parasite tries to take advantage of that, but Ike is quick enough to turn his miss into a sideways attack, cutting a few of the attacking tentacles out of the way.
A flash of purple light briefly illuminates the hallway, showing you a couple of parasites lying in ambush further into the hallway, hiding in small holes and around the corners the architect of this place seemed to like so much. It also shows you that the slave in this case appears to be a robed woman with three parasites wrapped around her. Well, that's good to know.
You attack once more, but this time you are both so good (or equally terrible) that you are unable to hit each other.
By this time the second parasite has reached you. It attacks but you are easily able to sidestep and stab it in its "heart" in one swift motion.
You are about to attack the first one again when it grabs your arms. You try to resist and pull away, but it's too strong. It pushes you down into the ground and starts pulling itself towards you, trying to wrap itself around you.
The sound of small explosions that was coming from the portal room seems to have culminated in a big one that causes the floor to tremble slightly.
((That's one lucky parasite.))
Alan looks about and sees the day is dire/
He knows what he must do, it's time to light the fire!
Summon COUCH!
Glorious wheeled couch that will save hiiiiiim/
Awesome couch!
Throw Doggy on the sofa and begin to speed away
((That was set to some sort of rythm in my head.))
((I imagine it sung by one of those rock bands that sound like they're wailing when they're singing.))
You summon a massive, wheeled, slightly glowing couch. Right on top of River.
Somebody watching would think that you were doing this on purpose.
His body wedges the couch in place, preventing it from moving.
"Silly Rover. I said
on the couch, not under it."
Maybe he's confused because some people don't allow dogs to sit on furniture? Well, no matter.
A big bright flash of purple light distracts the parasites going after you for a while, buying you some time. You try to lift the couch so that you can pull River out of it and put him on it. And for a second, it looks like you're going to succeed. But then you slip on a pool of slimy liquid on the ground and somehow also end up under the couch. What the? How did that happen?
"Why couch? Why have you betrayed me?"
The portal keeps coming closer and closer. Looks like that's it. You'll be teleported on the other side where you'll be eaten by many angry tentacle things. It touches the couch, eating the arm, then starting to go through the pillow. And then there's an explosion nearby. The entire left side of your face hurts, feels like it's being burnt. You feel a lot of pain, almost passing out.
But it looks like the portal is no longer there. It has vaporised part of your couch, true, but at least it's not going to eat you.
On the downside, your couch is now missing two wheels, is stained with fluids, has pieces of tentacles on it and is slightly on fire in the places the portal touched it. All and all, you wouldn't say it's in good condition.
Furthermore there's a weird expanding-purple-line-thing that is slowly coming towards you. And if your life has taught you anything is that glowing magical things are probably either important, dangerous or both.
((I find it funny that the less people are around you (including yourself), the more dangerous you are to them.))
Irine, Campaign
I slowly roll over and dazedly look around, trying to avoid jostling my head.
If I'm alone, then I curl up and rest my head on my knees, letting myself rest and recover.
If I'm in a room with few parasites and no teammates, then I let my predatory instincts take over, and grab the few flames in the room with me and begin hunting them down.
If I'm in a room with many parasites and no teammates, then I start crawling towards an exit.
If only a few moments have passed and I'm still in time-sync with the rest of the team, then I crawl towards the main group, trying to put a wall between me and the portal and the slabs, once I'm sure nobody is left behind in the room with the portal, I start siezing the fire it's using as fuel and tugging on it, backing it up, making it flow too fast, attempting to rip it away, just generally messing with it and pushing the limits of whatever is fighting with me for control.
((You're with Zechariah in the doorway, but I don't know if a person counts as a group. Well, it's the largest closest concentration of conscious, safe and able teammates around, so I'll just say it does.))
Despite your head hurting, your weakness and the general un-wellness you are feeling, you manage to find enough strength to crawl closer to Zechariah. You try to use your ability and you succeed for a few moments, but you can't maintain your concentration for long and trying to only causes your head to hurt more. Looks like you need a minute of rest and non-magic.
((Oh, and in case it matters, you can see everything Zechariah can.))
OOCSo, it looks like in an inversion of what happened first mission, Zechariah is the only one left that is OK and on his feet at this point. And Theri, who seems to be (trying) to keep everyone safe.
((Okay, gotcha. I know Coolrune's character whose name escapes me is doing his own thing, but what about the other two? AWOL?))
One is as inactive as a mammoth in a glacier (read: profile marks him as inactive since November) and the other is currently a couple of blocks away, watching the guys preparing to ambush you.
((You know, after looking at those entity matchups, I'm very interested in the Rhymerer one. A shame he doesn't have any pairings, since that could wind up pretty amusing.))
I have one thought up but I'm still thinking about the details and how I'm going to describe it. That and
his challenge, along with a few more pairings.
Remember it's still work in progress, I only have things that I'm ~80% certain or above in there. Anything below that is in my mind/notes and anything in there is subject to change (for example, I'm thinking of changing the difficulty rating to linear).
((I plan to take a boost from him if I survive the mission to make things more interesting. I need more trips through the aether fighting space squids or whatever the hell happened after I died that time before I got stuck in a movie theatre.))
Yeah, I still need to finish making the images for that thing. Been very busy lately, so it might take a while.
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Topic: Special People: Mechanical Syndrome (Read 1141238 times)