Saevus, After the End
Can I summon a ballista while still keeping the shield? If so, summon it aimed at John's cover. Make the bolt heavy and as AP as it can be. Keep firing on the bots with the HMG, and once the ballista is summoned and loaded, fire it at John.
Oh, wait. I don't have Stocked Items. I'd have to load it manually, won't I? If so, charge at John, blast his cover into him and strike him with the polehammer a few times.
Also, modify my shield to be more mirror-like. Basically, make it so that it can deflect the lasers at least a bit.
If I see John leveling his cannon at me, engage Stasis.
Seriously, if I had Repulsor Shield, John would be having a much worse time right now. But at the same time, I'm so close to Saevi Jr. Gah, choices.
Not having stocked means that you have to manually summon replacement ammo to load it up. If you get it, you'd go from 'fires crossbows more quickly because he can summon ammo' to 'has automatic crossbows'.
Direct fire didn't work well at all; let's go for the root.
Direct all bots to grapple; send at least 5 directly against the HMG to try to neutralize it via grappling.
He's behind a machine; can I use my connection to the room to influence it? Have it try to grab him or interfere with him in any way? If so, do that. If no, summon a thick metal chain net and try to also restrain him with that. Electrified, even. Basically, this turn is all about staying in cover and getting him all tangled up.
The bots stop firing their lasers and instead focus on Saevus. One after the other, they launch their grappling hooks, trying to grab his shield and the MG mounted on it. Then they
all reverse, trying to pull him down. For a moment the two are equally matched, Saevus barely managing to hold his ground while the bots' wheels skid on the concrete and roots. The next moment Saevus starts winning the tug of war, pulling them back and threatening to flip them. But then the machine next to him creaks. Before he can react, a pressure vessel ruptures, filling the area around him with white foam and dust. The effect doesn't damage Saevus but it is enough to tip the scales to the bots' favour. He is forced to let go of the shield and his MG to avoid falling down.
It takes less than 5 seconds for the dust to settle. Seconds punctuated by the roots pulsing with light, echoed by flashes of light coming from within the dust. When it finally dissolves, it reveals a visibly straining Saevus' in control of a giant freaking ballista.
<It's times like these that I wish Saevus was more caught up with modern slang.><Oh? Why is that?><Because now would be the perfect time to say 'Yeah. I can summon big guns too, biatch.'><Oh, yeah, I can totally see that.>WMD, After the End
Transform back and head back to the control room. See if I can use a terminal to release the cables. If not, recover some energy if I need to. If I don't, transform again with weapons and cut the cables. Then transform back and board the sub. See about getting out of here.
You attempt to use the terminal to release the cables. Instead, you manage to explode the crane's hydraulics and lock the sub in place a few feet above the hole. Maybe jiggling the thing was a bit too much for tubes and pressure containers that had gone unused and unmaintained for so long.
Well, I suppose it is time for percussive maintenance. You go out, transform and start yanking on the crane, trying to either break its grip so that you can release the sub, cut the cables and finally get the hell out of here. As you do so, you sort of feel something click inside the sub, some sort of electrical whir. You instinctively pull away just as its propellers activate, slicing at the air where your appendages were moments ago. Frankly, you're not really sure how much damage it can do to you, those propellers don't look too sturdy, but you'd prefer not to damage the sub, since you need it to get out of here.
Alan, Ethical Person
"Thanks for your contribution to science, little kid! If you experience any mutations or agonizing magical phenomena, be sure to contact me! I'm Alan."
Go report my findings to the gardener dude.
By gardner I assume you mean "healer". Said healer is not very happy about what you report to him. Instead of telling you more about your plant he immediately takes off to go examine the child. Hm. Well, he was probably unhappy with the amount of data you gathered and needed more. So you follow him.
When you find the kind, he is in bed with serious stomach pain and has started turning an unhealthy shade of pink. The healer immediately goes to work, trying to bring his temperature down and figure out what is wrong with him.
Campaign, Ike!
Wait, there's a fight in the east?
In any case, if they're really itching to get themselves killed, they're free to come along! Meatshields and expository victims are always welcome!
Oh, and get more mules, one for each of us. Maybe an oxcart for the other mooks.
Yeah. Basically the Sovereignty in the east apparently decided to exploit this kingdom's weakness and invaded, taking a major city and raiding the surrounding area. See Theri's part
here if you want a bit more info. Or just ask for specifics.
With the help of the mooks you get a bunch of mules and oxcarts. You spend a good part of the day organizing your little caravan.
What was reviving Nik like?
First you find a nice stone table. Then it was sterilized by fire and the soulsphere was placed on it. Then the sword weaved a frame for his body out of semi-transparent grey lines, starting from soulsphere and the bones surrounding it and working outwards. The weaving was complicated and took quite some time, as every bone, every nerve and every muscle was woven to very fine detail. Whenever a part was finished it was "baked" in white fire and took a darker appearance, closer to how you would expect them to be, but still monochrome. Finally a great vortex of fire and light was aimed directly at the body from above, focusing, becoming thinner and more intense until all was left was a line of light aimed at his heart, at where the soulsphere once was. As his body was slowly uncovered, you could see that it was now a normal human body. A final pulse of light travels down the beam and hits his chest. And for a moment he looks gigantic, as if the whole room revolves around them, a great kaleidoscope of giant Nikolais divided by writhing purple and teal filaments. And then it all fades and you are left with a complete Nikolai. Its work is done.
When it was done, the sword informed you that it would need some time to recover before it would be at full strength and could attempt something like that again. It also informed you that since Life is not its primary discipline, the body created won't be exactly as it was before death, but the changes are not very important and it should return to its natural state overtime.
As for Nik himself, he didn't feel anything during the process. He just woke up from a dreamless sleep, feeling a bit tired and weak but otherwise fine.
Wake up
You wake up. You feel normal. Maybe a bit weak.
I assume Irine would have had someone cloth you and take you to the healer's home where they could watch over you while you slept.
"It means living your life the way you want it. To free yourself from anything that is holding you back."
"It means to live your life to the fullest. What living your life to the fullest means though, that's up for interpretation. I mean, if you're going to believe the idiocies he's spouting-"
"Oh, now what's with the ad hominem? Run out of good arguments? Or are you just trying to get me to kill you again? Because you'll have to try harder than that."
"I have to try? I thought you always want to kill me."
"True, but that doesn't mean I am constantly trying."
"Yeah it does. You see this guy talks about being free, but in the end he's just a slave of his obsession with me."
"Hah. You'd wish. Just because you're obsessed with yourself doesn't mean everyone else is."
"... I think you lost me."
"Don't trouble yourself. Just an old disagreement. Nothing to be concerned about.""Yeah. Besides, you have more important things to concern yourself with. I heard that due to your victory, you might get a special something...""Indeed. The operation will be beginning shortly.""So... while preparations are being made for the operation, would you care to share your opinion on this for us?""How attached are you to your body? How important is it to you?""Would you give it up to gain more power? Alter it irreversibly?""There are people that take dangerous body-altering drugs just to gain a tiny bit of extra strength over their opponents. Would you consider that? Or is it only booze for you?""I mean look at those two." he says while pointing at the TV screen where the magically-animated suit of armour that is Saevus and the mutilated cyborg entombed in layers of armour that is John are fighting each other, the knight of magic against the knight of science.
"Would you mind having a body like theirs if it meant you would be more powerful?"
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Topic: Special People: Mechanical Syndrome (Read 1141789 times)