Team B: H4zardZ1, Wolfkit, IllgeoDive to cover.
You do the smart thing and try to find cover. Unfortunately, there is none. So you just hug the floor as tightly as you can.
Team B
"I'm going to increase the power once more, so speak now or find cover and forever hold your peace!"
Change the wavelength to infared, then try maximum power and take cover
You try to move as far away from the wall as possible, which is easier said than done when you're in a looping corridor.
"Target, maximum firepower!"You avert your gaze from the giant beam of death, hoping that your sweat will be enough to prevent your clothes from igniting. A few seconds later, when the beam is done, you get up and start patting your head, trying to extinguish your hair.
That done, you approach the still smoking and glowing hole and try to look through it. Can't see too much. The hole is not very big. But it looks like there's something like a sewing mannequin in there, wearing a half-finished white dress with too many frills. Your laser has just missed it, making a black mark on the wall behind it. Judging from the size of the mark, the room is not small but not too large either.
Team C: akkudakku, FallacyOfUrist, mydjet"One last try..."
Speed the team up. Try to find a way further into the house.
You manage to speed up the team for a couple of dozens of seconds.
Team A: DreamerGhost, Beirus, Alarith"What's happening? Did you get him?"
"I think so, something weird is going on, can you move? Try moving a little bit."
Keep an "eye" on the psychic energy. Maybe start carefully making my way to one of the walls of the room.
"Uh. I think so." the man replies more loudly than necessary.
"Leg's hurt but I think I- Ghhdamnit." there is a spike of pain from him but he starts moving. You can hear his legs getting dragged on the ground.
"Thank the fathers you're still alive, I thought I was- Uh? What was that? Is that you?"
Part of the psychic void above him starts condensing into a shape, like a cloud of ink with a viscous blob hanging from it, getting larger and longer until it touches the floor with a creaking and clicking sound. Suddenly a light flickers on. It stays on for a couple of seconds, during which time the psychic void in your mind's eye further condenses into the form of a human. But what you're seeing standing next to the officer, getting ready to jump on him.... that is no human.
"WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT THING!?"
See if my flashlight is still not working. If so, throw it at the guy I was shooting at. If it works, see how this place and that guy actualy look like.
You hit the flash-light with the handle of your pistol. The third hit's the charm, as your flashlight flickers on and stays on for a couple of seconds. Plenty of time for you to see every detail of the strange creature standing a few metres ahead from you, next to the injured (and very horrified) officer frantically searching for his gun.
Its general shape is humanoid, but its features are more avian, crow-like. It has a yellow bead for an eye, one on each side of its head and a long, thin, curved, yellow beak. Instead of hands it has very short and thing wings. At the end of its wings are several brown claw-like things, about a metre long each. You can't see the entirety of its legs, but they look asymmetrical, oddly bent with too many joints. Many of its black feathers are missing or irregular, showing patches of skin, making it look like it's sick. Most of its body and especially its claws and beak are covered with blood, most of it old and dried, making its feathers look even worse, some of it fresh.
It turns its head towards you for a split second, making a displeased gurgling caw-like sound in the process, but it turns its head back towards its prey a moment later.
Final Round
<Tick tock,
goes the clock.
As time flies,
my patience expires...>
Begin slowly crawling up the wall in slime form. As I go, develop photosynthetic cells inside my amorphous body to increase my biomass generation.
You blob your way up and through the debris.
You can feel the heat and everything becoming brighter up there.
Just in case that I felled the right building I'll wait for a short while and watch for Rune. Also, I'll switch my axe for a crossbow.
If I don't see Rune I'll go blast a different building.
If I see him I'll take a shot at him and then close the distance as fast as I can and blast him.
You go ahead and blast another building to pieces. This one fell much more easily. You think you're getting the hang of this. When all this is done you could go into the demolition business.
The humans around don't seem very happy with it, however. The ones that aren't screaming as they run away in fear are shouting curses at you.
Gonna be smart for once. Try to see the trail the rocket left, because I'm sure that's where that guy is. Otherwise. Hide behind some rubble, because I'm sure he'll come along to look for bits of me. When he gets to a decent distance (about mid-close range, if not seen, on reaction if I think he saw me), shoot him with hand napalm.
You start moving towards the building when you spot something flying out of the same window, accompanied by the sound of an engine.
You take cover behind a still smouldering car and look at the thing. It's hard to make out details in the low light of the dusk, but you can tell that it is large and it has wings. It's holding them relatively steady, flying around in circles like a vulture.
Ditch the silly racket and hang on to the grenades, because we're going to use them. Get airborne and start slowly heading down; keep at least 60 feet off the ground. Let the sensor drones do their work; we need to find this guy.
No, I'm not bringing the huge rocket launcher.
You jump out of the window and start slowly circling around like a vulture, trying to spot your target in the fading light of the dusk.
It doesn't take long to find him. Your helmet highlights him, showing his face as he turns to look in your direction. He's taking cover behind a burnt car close to a building on the same street you're in.
Staging Area
<character>
You wake up.
You're laying face first on something hard, cold and smooth. Feels like your face should be bruised from sleeping on something like that, but it isn't.
It's not very dark, but it's not very bright either. What it is, is very damp. Too much humidity.
You can hear large amounts of water falling somewhere nearby. The area you are in is distorting the sound, creating quiet echoes.
Campaign
Commwire, to River:<The human village sent soldiers to the crater. They made a camp above our cave. They don't know we're here, but we're trapped...>
<Is Theri okay?>
Like before, there is no response.
Campaign, Ike!
<Seems like this is our opportunity. Dudes are moving, and so should we in all likelihood.>
As Alan returns, Ike returns to the cave with him.
"Did any of you guys do something like that? I remember some of you tend to set fire to things because you forget your words, or make one's big wheels excessively large for no good reason."
"Oh, we most certainly did. Set fire to the refugee village, blinded a wizard, killed three guards and took their swords, entered under false pretenses, and, lest we forget, were directly responsible for the near-complete obliteration of their city. The last one, though, they don't yet know we did. The first few, though... yeah, I'm pretty sure there's at least a couple people who can place me and Irine at the scene, even though I did try to minimize witnesses."
"It does make me wonder, though, if these guys even talked to Master Kassiver. I overheard them talking about what we did to the mage, but yet they don't seem to know what happened in the Fire Tower, and Irine sure as hell told him all about that. Odd. Maybe they're just pretending to not know? Or perhaps those stones were more potent than I thought?"
"Anyway, now would be a good time to make ourselves scarce or at least get into a more defensible position. Prepare to get moving. We ought to rendezvous with Rover in not too long from now, since this doesn't seem like a very good place to rest anymore. Alan, you lead Nikolai and Zech off one way, me and Irine will go a stealthier route."
Prepare to roll out stealthily.
You slowly and quietly get back to the tunnel where you get extra ready to roll out. You don't actually make any preparations, because I have no idea how you intend to roll out, but you feel so damn ready to roll you, you're ready to start rolling on the floor right now.
Nah, not gonna betray my teammates. Maybe for a tank, but not for a shield.
"Ready to leave at any time. The sooner the better."
Get ready to leave. Oh wait, I'm already ready to leave.
Private message to Alan: <Did you hear? He called you my pet! And also a chaos sorcerer. I thought you said you were an appliancemancer?>
You allow Ike to join your "ready to leave" club. Now he has access to all your secret parties, but no dorm room for him until he proves himself.
"I... I... Okay... Um, Ike? What are we going to do?"
"Take up your fox form, we're going to do a little bit of a detour in relation to the others. We'll be all sneaky-beaky and whatnot, while they can stomp about at their leisure."
Accept any form of disguise Alan can offer. Especially a Groucho Marx set. If I have a shirt, fashion it into a hood/turban combo, tying my ears back.
"O-okay..."
I shift to full-human
"Alrighty. Oh wait, I'll give you guys some disguises."
Try summoning up some really big bushy fake moustaches or two of those Groucho Marx glasses/nose/moustache sets.
Then get ready to leave by packing up as much of the food as I can.
Thought to Nikolai: <Yeah, I dunno what he was thinking with the chaos sorcerer thingy. I'm more a miscellaneousmancer, really, but not no chaos magic! I just use what I got very chaotically. Eh, not everyone can be perfect.>
Ike takes his bloody shirt and uses it to make some sort of improvised turban while Irine becomes the mass of fire she is while shapeshifting.
Alan decides that now is the best time to summon some disguises and put them on his teammates' faces. And by putting, he mean launching. Straight at the blob of fire that is Irine. Luckily, Ike is quick enough to use his shirt as a whip and hit the plastic projectile mid-flight, knocking it off course.
He turns around just in time to see a fake-glass-and-mustache combo heading his way, just in time to twist his head out of the way. He grabs the (now slightly cracked) pair of glasses as it bounces off the wall. Well, that's... one poorly thought out disguise for him?
((I made the assumption that Ike would try to protect a teammate.))
Well, I guess that could have gone worse, Zechariah thinks to himself. I don't know how we're not half past dead yet.
Oh, wait. We are.
Reluctantly follow Alan and disintegrate my shards. Conserve my energy for later.
It's hard to follow someone who is not moving. Well, he is moving around gathering supplies, but I assume you don't want to literally follow him around like a dog.
Theri pondered. She pondered on the many ideas River mentioned and pondered on how vast the knowledge he was entrusting to her was. She pondered, but she caught herself to take priorities with initiative.
"You'll show yourself when you're comfortable with it River. I'm happy with knowing you is all." She gave him a nod before focusing on the idea of Irine.
"But, if you're alright, I can support you when we go. I surprisingly feel alright--and...that note with Irine. I want to know how everyone else is doing. Is there anyway I can help while you rest?"
Theri shuddered as if a cold wind passed her. She remarked on how deep River's words to her were. It was like the creation reflecting on the will of its creator. It was an enigma and an answer.
She gave him a smile. "Because we have a long way to go it seems."
"Thank you, I... I am too. You and the others." he says smiling as he closes his eyes again, his body relaxing.
"I am glad you understand. I... I just want to... just stay safe. The others should be close. I promise I will...""I do not feel it is safe yet. I will show you, when I feel... I will explain. When I feel you are ready to face it...""I will show you the world. The way I see it. I will show you yourself. The way I see you. I... I will... I should take you to fly... You should fly with me. Flying is so much fun... We will have fun... time to have fun. If I protect you...""I do not want you to get hurt again... I do not want to fail... to break my promise again... I do not want you to leave..."He speech becomes slower and quieter until he stops talking completely, his breathing slowing down as his body relaxes further.
Looks like he's sleeping. His exhaustion must have finally caught up with him.
OOC(Heh, it's neat how each character has an entity that corresponds with their powers, personality, backstory, etc. I'm curious, do any of the players here share the same entity? I checked the first post, but I don't think that part has been updated lately)
No, they don't. I considered it, since it would make things easier gameplay wise (less things for me to think of and keep track of) but I think it wouldn't make as much sense story wise.
And yes, I really need to update that sometime...
(Heh, it's neat how each character has an entity that corresponds with their powers, personality, backstory, etc. I'm curious, do any of the players here share the same entity? I checked the first post, but I don't think that part has been updated lately)
((Yeah, it seems pretty unique, and I like the entities. I don't know how much their personalities match up to our characters though. Hey Paris, how much are our entities personalities influenced by the way we play our characters?))
In an OOC sense, I try to make interesting pairs that would be an interesting match with the personality and the various possible stories/motivations/avatars I have for each entity. That rarely means exact pairings, but sometimes they are pretty close, if I think it makes sense. But a good mix of differences and similarities are what make good pairings I think. Need a bit of conflict.
That's a bit of a headache on its own, because sometimes you have people that feel like they could fit well with multiple entities depending on which angle you take on their entity and their personality (I believe I've mentioned me considering Irine for Darkstar in the past. I was also considering having Ike with one of the more murder-happy entities or Zech with one of the more... morally questionable entities.) So you have to decide which pairing is best. I think I've done an OK job thus far. I'm happy with the original pairings, still seeing how the rest are working out.
In an IC sense, most of them have a reason for choosing you, be it an ulterior motive or just because they liked you or the way you fought or thought you were fun. And their avatars are still people, so they can be influenced and changed by you and others, although doing so is not very easy.
Both of those (IC and OOC) is why I sometimes create new entities instead of choosing an old one. And why I sometimes may try to wait until after someone's first mission to let them know which entity they have if they haven't given me enough hints about their character's personality and playstyle, in case the choice I originally made was a mistake.
Haven't had much time to do proper introductions lately, been focusing more on making turns...
Poll
15 (42.9%)
Author
Topic: Special People: Mechanical Syndrome (Read 1140865 times)