Staging Area
John turned and grinned at the assemblage of entities. "Ladies."
Put it out to short spear length, then try the front/back buttons. Safe/Unsafe too, though I figure I know what they do.
Pressing the Unsafe button causes something like a thin layer of mercury to flow towards one end of the pole from the ring and solidify into a spearhead there, the process taking less than a second to complete. Pressing the Safe button does the opposite, causing the spearhead to dissolve and return inside the ring. Front and back seems to control on which end of the pole the spearhead will be in Unsafe mode, with the side of the ring that has a small notch in it being regarded as Front.
A bit of technosenssing shows that the ring uses a very simple circuit made out of transistors, capacitors and zener diodes to store the state it is in (Safe/Unsafe, Front/Back, Stop/Move) while the Enlarge/Shrink pair and the Reconfigure button do not appear to store their settings anywhere, at least not anywhere you can sense.
Second chance round
Freeze the enemy flare midflight (slow it down as much as possible). I speed myself up and try to speed the tank up. Then dash towards the hill sticking to cover.
"THE FUCK WAS THAT SOUND!?"
"God fucking damn, I have to start writing these down.. Was it 'SPIDDO APPU PRIZU'? Or was it 'DUN WAN TU DAI PRZ'."
You make an appropriate magic gesture, shout your magic words and point at the flare. You succeed in slowing down the flare a tiny bit, causing it to fall right on the lead tank, thus ensuring it will not be run over by it and remain visible.
You also manage to speed yourself up a little bit, giving you a tiny boost in speed and reaction time.
As you reach the tank, it opens fire on the hill, spewing fire from its cannon and causing small tremors on the earth. The noise is enough to cause your ears to ring, making it hard for you to hear anything.
((Luck continues to not be on your side.))
"Did I miss something while screaming? Eh. Can't have been that important."
Dash foward to right behind my tank, take cover, and shoot a laser at whoever I think is the biggest threat at the moment.
((Yeah, I meant about my position in the of characters. I'll do better next time.))
You get up and start running towards the tank as fast as a scientist that has spent most of his days in a lab can, i.e. not very fast. Looks like you are not motivated to run fast enough without something chasing you while trying to eat you.
As you reach the tank in front of you, it and the others open fire on the hill, the recoil strong enough to push it deeper into the mud and cause the ground to vibrate. Looking around the most threatening thing appears to be a deer wearing an Interface on one of its legs that is running around like crazy.
You take out your notepad and pen and start writing, when between the sounds of gunfire, explosions and cannon fire, you hear another sound. It's the sound of jet engines, coming from somewhere on your right. But it doesn't sound like the engines of the cargo planes that brought you here. It's quieter, with a different pitch and appears to be approaching you more slowly. You look at the direction the noise is coming from and immediately spot its source. A black silhouette against the background of dark clouds, an aircraft moving towards you. Something tells you that that is the biggest threat towards you at the moment, so you immediately switch the target of your current equation.
"I wish I was a tank."
Keep moving alongside the tank. If I'm going too slow, catch a ride on the side unless it looks like I'll be crushed by the treads. If I cant jump on the tank and I'm going too slow, try to maintain a decent forward pace at least. If under attack, activate self and begin charging. Watch out for attacks from the hill.
<Don't we all?><Everyone who is not already a tank, certainly.>You keep moving forward as quickly as you can, reaching the back of the group of soldiers currently assaulting the hill.
Machine guns on the hill open fire on the soldiers. Many of them fall to the ground, either hit by the rounds or scared by the noise and the stream of tracers flying in their general direction and seeking cover in the mud. The fire is focused on the front of the group, but a stray round manages to nick you in the side. It's but a scratch, but it causes some pain.
The tanks behind you retaliate, striking some of the machine gun nests on the hill, momentarily silencing them, either because they were hit or because they are trying to look like less of a target.
You're almost at the base of the hill. Less than a minute's climb and you'll reach the objective. Then you just have to hold it...
Stay put in the crater for this round, something might be about to happen. See if I can secure myself a bit further inside the human deer mind.
You make sure you are in good cover and try to gain even more control over your deer enemy.[/terrible_joke] Unfortunately for you, he appears to have figured out that something is wrong and is beginning to resist you. He doesn't manage to get you out of his head but you don't make any progress either. He starts panicking and running away (more like stumbling, actually, since it appears that he is experiencing some discomfort). You try again and this time you manage to force your way into his mind completely. Any attempts you make for overt control over him will be now much easier. However, if he keeps running away like that, range might become a problem...
Your psychic radar is telling you that there's someone in the air, coming towards you from the east quite quickly. You have less than 10 seconds until they are here. They shine like a beacon of schadenfreude in a battlefield filled with anxiety and pain, bravery and despair, reminding you of the feelings of some of the people inside the tanks.
Try to listen to the whispers. Discern what they are. If it seems threatening to me, run the fuck away like deer do. If not, then move back outside of the crater and devour every piece of grass possible.
The whispers are telling you to relax. To let yourself go. To stop struggling. That it will only hurt for a moment.
You cannot see who is speaking.
Before you can contemplate what that means, you feel like something is burning your head and trying to squish it into nothingness at the same time. You don't know where the effect is coming from, so you simply run forward as fast as you can, hoping it will make things better.
It appears that it does actually make things better, since the pain diminishes somewhat as you approach the back of the group of soldiers assaulting the hill.
As if guided by an invisible force, the flare strikes the lead tank dead on, illuminating it with a bright red light for all to see.
As everyone engages in their various actions, the soldiers that were air dropped less than a minute ago keep moving towards the hill. Machine gun nests on the hill open fire, spewing tracer rounds towards the advancing soldiers. Many of them fall down, either because they were hit or because they are seeking cover in the mud.
The tanks, having gotten into position earlier, retaliate, hitting some of the defensive positions on the hill and causing many more to go quiet, giving the soldiers some respite. Those close to them wish they had been given warning, for their ears do not appreciate the noise of cannon fire.
You can hear the noise of metal moving behind you. Looking back, it looks like the horizon itself is moving, like the dark shapes of distant mountains are coming closer towards you, looming higher above you.
Campaign
Campaign, Ike!
Make no sound. See nothing. Hear everything. Take in the smells of the area.
You continue to overhear the conversation between the two guards.
*quiet*
"So."
"Yeah?"
"What's going on in there?"
"I do not know."
*quiet*
"Who do you think she is?"
"I do not know."
*quiet*
"I bet it's another wizard. Don't you think? I mean, it makes sense, what with all the-"
"I've received no new information in the past few seconds that will cause me to alter the answer I've been giving you. So the answer remains, I do not fucking know."
"Alright, alright."
*quiet*
"You're in a mood today."
"Well you're not helping."
"Just trying to make small talk is all. It's boring here."
"Not in the mood. And I like it boring. I'd like it to stay boring, if possible."
"Why, what's got you down? Well, besides the obvious."*sniff*
Human, human, human, human, wood, rock, human, human, rat, dirt, flour, salt, another rat, something dead, something rotten, rat, something that smells like rat, something that smells like it should be dead, human, human,...
*sniff sniff*
Hey, you think you can smell potatoes!
"Oh!"
I perk up at his response, his statement that I'm not to blame for his hostility.
"So it's not because of me that... Ok then."
"Um, I was hoping to wait until you had a chance to start trusting me to ask you to teach me about magic, but if the reason you don't trust me is because of what I am, something that I can't change unless I start lying to you, then there really isn't anything more I can do to establish trust, is there? Um, is there anything you want me to tell you or do before you'll be okay with teaching me about magic?"
I put the wood slab he had been drawing on back on the table, and push it towards him, lowering my feet back to a normal seated posture as I do.
after a pause I add:
"Would you feel better if you got your focusing crystal first?"
He appears a bit puzzled by your reaction but says nothing. Your offer however gets him more interested.
"Hm... If you want me to trust you, then answer me this. Tell me how to best kill you. Or give me anything that would make you vulnerable to me. Or swear an oath of loyalty to me. Anything along those lines. Trust for trust. I can get him out of here if it would help."
"If you cannot provide that, then it changes nothing and we proceed as normal... well, as normal as this can be considered. If you can, then at least I can rest safely knowing that if you turn into a monster or try to aid our enemies, I have something to use against you."
"And no, focusing crystals are rare and fragile. I do not want to strain it more than I need to. Maybe if I have to cast a complex spell, but I do not think that will be necessary."
OOCHehehehehe... It looks like this round will end much sooner than I had predicted...
I might be a bit busy next week. I'll try to keep updating but I make no promises.
((I'm loving the evolution of this story, Paris and co. 
Keep at it Lenglon! (and friends)))
Hopefully I'll have you resurrected by the end of the next in-game day so that you can participate too, assuming things turn out OK with River's and Zechariah's current attempts at resurrection.
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Topic: Special People: Mechanical Syndrome (Read 1151795 times)