Campaign
Turtle in here as long as I possibly can.
Control my breathing and heart rate so I don't use much air.
Listen to the attacks, try to find a pattern, find the longest gap, plan the safest moment to escape.
Brainstorm the worst possible thoughts to psychic scream.
Prepare for the moment to strike.
You feel your body shift as you fall forward. Another strike, close to your back. This one sounds different, more dull but also louder. It is followed by the sound of metal getting bent.
You try to ignore it, ignore the pain, ignore the cold, ignore the dizziness, ignore everything, just tell yourself that you are safe, just calm down. You slowly repeat those words to yourself, successfully managing to get your heart to stop pounding like crazy in your ears.
Another strike. This one is heavy. It causes the armour on your back to vibrate immensely, but it holds. Sounds like they're trying something different.
You try to think about a way to take advantage of their attacks but you can't. They aren't just blindly attacking you. They aren't just whacking you with their swords and expecting a different result. They're actually trying different things. You just can't figure out what. And thus you cannot predict what they will do. For example, right now there's mostly silence, beyond the sound of something lightly scraping against your back armour, the sound amplified by the enclosed space and your ear's proximity to the metal.
Now there's another strange sound. It's... you don't know how to describe it. Like rain on your armour, like very small drops of rain are hitting it? Then there's the sound of metal scraping against metal, but it's different. You can actually feel the metal on the back side of your armour shifting. You have only a moment to think about what this means before there is a loud clang and a powerful impact on your back, followed by the sound of metal grinding against metal. Something stings you in the back and a great weight presses down on you.
Oh, hey, now there's light inside your armour. Yeah, quickly flickering light. Kinda like a night light, like a lamp, like a campfire. It's reminding you of sleep, reminding you of nights spent sleeping on wet floors with not even a blanket and the smell of burning rats fresh in your nostrils. Yeah, you can feel it right now, the water spreading on your chest, the smell of burning flesh, the sight of flickering light... You think it's time to sleep now.
Campaign, Ike!
Ike's going to play with your things.
And yes, the plan is backstabs, basically. Maybe not literal backstabs. Perhaps more of a backslash. One that opens up some arteries if you know what I'm saying. Go for the vitals.
You try to make your way through the group of soldiers undetected, crawling now. You don't see them. And from what you hear, they must have not seen you. They continue converging around Nikolai, although some of them are keeping their distance. When you think that they have their backs turned on you, you keep trying to move towards your original targets while staying as low as possible.
As you approach your targets, you are forced to let go of your cover. You get up and start moving a bit faster. Not much point trying to hide at this range anyway. Your two targets are standing along with 4 soldiers that have their swords and shields at the ready. They all seem to be focusing on what you assume to be Nikolai. One of them is probably trying to cast some sort of spell, judging by his muttered words and the grey glowiness of his hands. The other is shouting commands between quick deep breaths, telling people to stay loose or to get ready to act when the signal light is fired.
You can see why they'd focus on the sight of Nikolai. Most of the soldiers have formed a very loose defensive circle around him, while one of the scouts and two of the soldiers are doing... something. The two soldiers are holding a shield, the side with the handle resting on top of a sword. The scout is holding the sword steady with one hand. With his other hand, he removes some small red thing from one of his packs and points it towards the tip of the sword.
The scout shouts 'Fiato Sami!' and a blindingly bright ball of fire flies out of the object and on Nikolai's armour. Its brightness lasts only for a few seconds before it turns into a dimmer fire, but during those few seconds the two soldiers struck the shield, thus pushing down the sword with all their body weight, acting like a human hammer striking a giant makeshift nail. You can see the sword sinking very deep inside the armour.
Damn. Those guys are smarter than you gave them credit for. Or maybe they just had some good intelligence rolls.
Your eyes automatically adjust to protect themselves from the bright light, so you don't worry too much about it. However, in the process of turning their heads away from the light, some of the soldiers turned their heads towards you. And of those soldiers, some of them caught a glimpse of you. And they were quite eager to inform the rest.
The wizard you targeted, the one that was casting the spell, reacts with confusion, trying to turn around to look at what the others are pointing at. All that does is give you a better target. His head turns around only to meet the edge of your knife, the thin pointy implement going straight through their skull and into their brain. The light in their hands flickers and dies.
Good news: You killed one of the two wizards.
Bad news: You are now facing numerous well trained, well equipped (and slightly tired) soldiers on your own.
Yeah. Probably not the best choice.
This is occurring a bit later than the above.
Welp, I have no reason to stay awake right now.
You relax further and further, your thoughts and worries melting away as you drift into unconsciousness.
But it doesn't last. You can tell that you haven't been asleep for very long when Theri gently wakes you by putting pressure on your shoulder and calling your name. There's the sound of bolts moving, a door unlocking. Then someone hastily coming down the stairs.
You all get ready for anything, turning around to face the stairs. The general appears at the top of the stairs.
"They... they are fighting." he says quietly, his voice barely reaching you from the top of the stairs.
He sounds... distant. Both literally and figuratively. It's like he's not 100% there.
Although I'm kinda stiff at first from the sudden hug, I lean into it after a moment and just let it continue as long as Theri wants it to.
Theri continues the hug and doesn't withdraw, feeling completely at ease with her environment of the moment. She dwells on the current mission objective and what she can best think up during the time being, thankful for moments of peace like these.
Well, not much has changed since you arrived to this place. The objective is still the same. Find the being River wants to kill and help him kill it. You got a possible location for your target in the eastern mountains, but not much more.
Unless you mean the more immediate objective of "hide in the basement until the soldiers pass". Said objective might be hard to complete now, with what's happening to Nikolai. Not that you can know much about Nikolai's current situation IC. Not much more than the fact that something is probably wrong with him, given his previous psychic screams and swearing.
I stay as I am and wait, closing my eyes.
You relax in Theri's warm embrace.
Welp, I have no reason to stay awake right now.
((This made me awwwwh 
))
Watch over Irine; Ensure the group I'm with doesn't get any worse--tend to wounded, too.
Wonder if going out to help River and the rest is a good idea considering what I see now.
Well, there's definitely something wrong out there, judging by the general's behaviour. Whether or not it would be a good idea to go out there however... you aren't sure. But it would probably be good to do
something. Learning more about what's going on would probably be a good start.
Introduce the kid to the concept of Red Bull as an energy drink that gives Professor Alan and General Dad the strength to be extra heroic! Have the two of them go around on adventures and stuff throughout the basement.
((Now even his kids are going to be harassing him about it! My psychological torment of that man will never end! He will give into the power of inexplicable product placement!))
"Hey little boy. Want some candy Red Bull?"The boy doesn't seem convinced.
"Come on kid, you should try Red Bull. It's delicious. All the cool kids are doing it."The child looks at you curiously.
"Yeah. It's the best thing ever. It's ah how to describe it... Like sex! But, you know, sex in your mouth."You have no idea if he understand you or not. He doesn't seem to be doing anything, he's just looking at you. You shove the can towards him anyway.
The boy shyly extends his hand towards it. He's about to pick it up when his father comes down and grabs his attention with his announcement. The boy stops paying attention to you and starts looking worried again. And you were so close to getting him to try it.
OOCNormally, I would have paused to give Ike a chance to warn or otherwise help Nikolai, but at this point I don't think there was anything either of them could have done.
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Topic: Special People: Mechanical Syndrome (Read 1151151 times)