Things occurring someplace
You approach the entrance acting like a rich bastard (or perhaps an angry primadonna, given how you're dressed).
"Unfortunately monsieur tonight is a special night, as monsieur is no doubt aware. Only people with the appropriate invitation may enter." the bouncer responds with a thick American accent.
"If monsieur does not show their invitation to me, I cannot let monsieur in. I am certain monsieur understands. We wouldn't want to let any... 'people' in." he continues with that air of petty superiority of someone who has found himself in a position of power over others.
"If you ask me, the guy's just fishing for bribes, trying to find some suckers to pay him." Jack whispers from behind you.
((Hey that's mean... and oddly appropriate!))
♚The Doll Prince: Only the Clever Shall Pass.♚
This lowly doorman dared to act above his station, hah! Just like those who are acutely aware of their position, he dared try to make up for it by acting all high and snooty. Let this brainless bête cherish his post; it's too bad that he will be stuck here for the rest of his life while Napoleon and Jack move on to better things. After all, he is the Doll Prince and obstacles are nothing but challenges he haven't blown through yet.
"I should've known that your simple mind can't comprehend the fact that we are the invitation!" Napoleon said with a sigh of faux resignation. "Very well, perhaps I can show you something that'll help remind you of that fact? It's a good thing this outfit has pockets..."
Napoleon will dig into his pockets for anything valuable to bribe the greedy plebeian into letting them both in. If this fails, Napoleon will leave the line, get out of sight, and use his dolls to scout for a way into the casino. That is, if Jack is unable to help.
You dig into your pockets while the bouncer watches with a smug expression. Unfortunately, your pockets are as empty as they were when you began, no objects have magically materialized in them.
"Please, allow me Sir." Jack says to you, turning his hand for an instant to show you the Ace of Hearts tucked in his palm.
"Hi buddy." he says as he approaches the bouncer.
"I'm Jack. Jack Krank." he adds, extending his hand for a handshake.
The bouncer looks at his hand for a moment before accepting it. You see a faint light as their hands touch. The bouncer's expression instantly changes as their handshake occurs, his face showing a big, vacant smile.
"Now we're friends, right?"
The bouncer seems unsure for a second. He nods.
"That's right. Really good friends. Think you can do your friends a favor and let them in?"
The bouncer mumbles something about an invitation.
"Yeah, we forgot them at home. But you know us, right? You know we have them. On my word as a friend. So it's just like having them with us, right?"
The bouncer considers that for a second and then nods again.
"Perfect! Thanks buddy!"
The bouncer smiles and waves while the two of you walk into the Casino. As the two of you walk through a small entrance area, Jack whispers from behind you, using your body as cover.
"That was an Ace and he was pretty weak-willed so it should last for a while. Long enough to forget. As long as nobody checks on him, we should be fine."
You go through a set of doors and into a larger room. A young girl is waiting on the other side of a booth, surrounded by various expensive-looking coats and bags.
"Hello gentlemen and welcome to the Queen's Tower Casino. Any coats, bags or other objects you wish to check-in? May I remind you that checking-in all firearms before entering is mandatory."The Casino proper is through a set of soundproofed doors.
Stephano Falcone
Assuming almost no time has passed, try to find the trap door and immediately descend after Iris. Close the trap door after I begin my descent.
If I instead discover that I am in a new location, then check my inventory to see if any of my stuff is missing or has been tampered with. Survey my surroundings.
(Could I get a list of what items I have with me? I know I have a multi-tool, a gun, and sunglasses, but I don't remember what else I got off of Mantis' body.)
((You have:
* a gun and a spare clip
* a radio
* a strange electronic device with some buttons and connectors on it
* a multitool
* a security card with a picture on it identifying Mantis as Marco Antilles
* a wallet that contains an ID with the same name and some cash
* some keys (they don't look like car keys)
* a hat (a black baseball cap with Velcro adjusters and no logo)
* a pair of mirrored sport sunglasses (curved and of a greyish color).
If you wanted to grab something from the house, just say so and we'll say you did so.))
You grope around blindly. Wood and dirt. Steep stairs. You look up. You can see light shining through the floorboards. Some of it is bright white, moving around. Flashlights. The light coming through the slits gives you glimpses of the room. Recently dug. Dirt walls held back by wooden boards. Boxes covered by cloth.
You must have fell through the trapdoor. There must be people walking around upstairs. You can see moving shadows and falling dust. But you can't hear them. There's only that ringing in your ears.
Hearing loss due to loud noises can last a long time. It could even be permanent.You try to get up. It's hard to keep your balance. You stumble but manage to get on your feet.
Just because one can't hear doesn't mean the whole world is deaf.
Maximus: Starboard Hangar Section, cargo transfer system
Kosak Durar:
Kosak follows along, confused. This definitely isn't his area of expertise.
You're getting too
old sober for this shit. Your head is starting to hurt and not in a good way.
<Svajoklis, Maximus>
"Well, this is all kinds of terrible. Not only are we faced with hat may as well be a wall, we are faced with possibility that either someone hacked the local robots or that someone saw reason to seal off the place we want to go to. You don't happen to have anything that could unseal the door on you, do you?"
See if anything can be salvaged from the spider. See if I can recover enough information about the spider to help Alan fix/salvage something of it.
You help with the bot-salvaging.
John, aboard the Maximus
"Hmmm... I wonder."
Can I use my power to open the lock that's crushing the spiderbot? If so, do so and get it loose. Sense the bot; is it fixable? If not, is the laser itself salvageable? Do what I can.
EDIT: Also, is the recording dated? How far back did the spider do its thing?
You unlock the lock and release the spider's remains with the help of your teammates. The fuel pod is intact but the reaction chamber is ruined. You try summoning a replacement and with a bit of effort you succeed. You now have an unfocused laser. You can use it to weld stuff and cut stuff, maybe cook something if you're careful, blind someone if you're not.
"Interface, does the Black Box contain anything that can be used to determine when the events it contains occurred?": All Black Boxes in this mission have been synchronized with the ship's Mission Timer. All events receive a timestamp relative to Mission Start. :"OK, when did the event in this Black Box occur?": The event recorded in the Black Box will happen in approximately 12.63 hours. :"Huh?"The interface doesn't respond.
"Interface, can you explain this?": Refine query. :*sigh* "Nevermind Interface, just show me the data you used to perform that time calculation."The interface responds by projecting the data on your screen.
| Interface Game Mission Timer: | + 00:57:49.492172520 | | Ship / Game Mission Timer Difference: | + 53:31:12.510000000 | | Calculated Ship Mission Timer: | + 54:29:02.002172520 | Black Box Ship Mission Timer: | + 80:07:20.007642442 | Discrepancy. Ignored. | | Black Box Event Timestamp: | + 67:07:05.583031338 | | Event / Ship Mission Timer Difference: | + 12:38:03.580858818 |
|
Hm. A bit hard to decipher, you make a mental note to alter the time format next time you ask for time data. Still, from what you can tell, according to the Black Box this event was recorded approximately 14 hours after the ship was transported here. But it's supposed to have only been about 1 and a half hours since the ship was transported here.
"Interface, why is the Black Box's clock going 26 hours forward?": Processing... Processing... Processing... Time limit exceeded. Insufficient data for meaningful answer. Refine query or obtain more data. :Well, that raised more questions than it answered.
Maximus: Starboard Hangar Section, central hub
Brian Hoss, Maximus: Starboard Hangar Section, small hangars
Start walking to the Waystation.
You keep walking until you reach the large door leading to the Hangar Section's Central Hub. Power has not been restored here, but the door has been left half-open. The area beyond the door is dark, you can hardly see anything. You switch on your suit's lamps to get a better look around. This is a wide open area, dominated by several rows of gigantic mover drones secured to one of the walls. Some of the walls have giant screens on them but all are unpowered. You notice one of the screen is broken. There's a scorch mark starting from it, moving away in a slightly curving line. You follow the line with your floating eyes until you find where it ends. A large armoured door. There's a hole molten in it but it doesn't go all the way through. Your map says it leads to the largest hangars, the ones that are supposed to hold the heavy duty tugs and cargo vessels. Someone was trying to melt a hole through it.
You walk your body closer to your eyes so that your suit provides more light. That's when you notice the giant blood-soaked machine lying on the ground nearby, pointing an energy weapon at you.
: Black Box in range. Downloading data... :A holographic projection appears close to where the machine is. It's the machine again, only this time it's standing upright, pointing its energy weapon towards the door. There's someone in a spacesuit inside it, you can't make out their details. Whoever it is, they are using the machine (which you now realize is an exoskeleton) to cut open the door. You can't see the invisible beam in the hologram but you can see its effects, the light being reflected off the door, the door's holographic self deforming to match its real self. Then suddenly something strikes the exoskeleton, blowing away a good chunk of its leg and the leg of its driver.
: Ah! Fuck! : the man in the spacesuit shouts in pain (you can tell it's a man from his voice) as the machine falls to the ground, its holographic self falling where its real self lies.
The man tries to turn the exoskeleton's weapon towards where the shot came from, towards the passages leading to the Main Security Station, but he doesn't get a chance to do so. Another shot lands on the suit's back, blowing another chunk out of it. It must have severed something important because the recording ends then, the hologram disappearing. You're not sure what happened to the man piloting the exoskeleton. There's a lot of blood but no body.
Campaign: The Hills of Midnight, on road
note: Irine would be in full-fox-form for the event, because of how it boosts her flames, and she knew she'd be testing herself tonight, though she didn't know how severe the test was going to be.
<TripleSword? Are you three okay?>
to the mage gathering guards:
<Theri is in trouble, those monster birds from before. We need to get her help. I'm still removing the aftereffects of the magic, can you send a group to help her?>
I continue cleansing the area, and try to identify what about this assault was so different.
Noted. That would make the cleansing go faster. You should be back to full strength in a few minutes assuming the same level of effort is maintained. After that, you should be able to easily keep the area clear, but you will have to maintain your field to prevent the effect from slowly returning.
<TripleSword? Are you three okay?><We are unharmed. We have faced stronger attacks in the past. It would take much more than this to hurt us.><Theri is in trouble, those monster birds from before. We need to get her help. I'm still removing the aftereffects of the magic, can you send a group to help her?>"Understood. I'll let the men know what we're up against and get a group ready to go." he informs you before he goes on to perform his duties.
Well, beyond the fact that it's downright stronger, you would say that the spell is much more active. The previous nights the spell was cast for a few seconds and then remained in place, passively enforcing the drainage of magical flows. Now it's constantly at work, tearing away at your magic, trying to pull it away. It's constantly spreading out of the major flows of magic. While some strikes feel random, others feel deliberate. It feels like after getting out of the major flows it stops being restricted to following the network of Fire magic, instead following some other direction.
Maybe whoever is casting the spell has found a way to increase its potency. Or maybe they know you are here and are targeting your group directly. You hope it's neither of those two. The first means things are about to get worse for everyone in this kingdom. The second means that things are about to get worse for you and your group, though there's the silver lining that if this is everything your enemy can throw at you then you are able to defend yourself from it.
Become acquainted with the current situation that we are in. Tell the head alchemist Sorry for zoning out and that I will get back to that conversation eventually. Ask if she knows anything aboit this zoning out symptom that seems to occur to special people.
((Sorry, been very busy with school and work lately.))
"Well, from what you've told me, those entities essentially link your souls to new bodies and force you to adapt to new knowledge and memories. Maybe your souls are rejecting this, which results in those sudden bouts of lethargy and reduced activity. That's my guess anyway, I don't specialize in Soul magic. For all I know your soul has something more important to do than driving your body."The current situation? Well, let's see.
There was an AoE magic-drain attack on the camp but Irine defended y'all. She is currently cleaning up the last of the spell's taint.
Theri went ahead to scout and found some monsterbirds and beastmen equipped with Lightning Cannons waiting to ambush your group as it attempted to cross a narrow stretch of road. She is currently trying to fight a one-woman guerrilla war against them, though Irine just sent some reinforcements her way. We can say you're close to her, if accompanying her in her scouting trip is something you would do.
Ike went to recover Alan's Eyes from some criminal scum and is on his way back to the camp, hoping he can use them to revive Alan. But then said eyes exploded into Chaos energy and he is now trying to survive the aftereffects.
Alan unwittingly sold his soul to the bond-former you were supposed to kill in exchange for a sweet new body. He is now all the way to Nether Pass in the eastern mountains.
All in all, things are going great.
Campaign: The Hills of Midnight, forward scout
Theri; Campaign
When the moment before great events is a moment's decision...
Theri had no idea what had just occurred, or if it was in anyway connected to their mission, but she had one thing in mind: She was no 'good' mage. She was good in athletics, physicality, calisthenics, hand-eye coordination, and running; at least two of which were very useful in this situation than magic.
They're already alerted--whatever did that alerted them. Time to do some sabotage.
If there was any sense of magic--as she did not know how it still worked fundamentally--she thought about River, about the other volunteers, about the other people who were with her; this was not technically their fight but only hers (and River's) against...River-kin! She rightfully wished their safety, and felt a deep sense of determination to go through with her plan, despite its lacking forethought and magnitude.
Aim to hit that power generator swiftly and decisively, then make a tactical withdrawal back!
You find a rock that feels heavy, get up and throw it at the power stone. It's a powerful throw but it's off target, hitting the weapon's metal frame instead, causing it to resonate with a loud clang. The beastmen notice the sound but do not appear to have noticed you. One of the monsterbirds however looks directly at you and screams. It sees you. You're out of time. You pick up another rock and throw it as the bird unfolds its wings and begins to flap them, clumsily making its way towards you. You turn around and run, not waiting to see the results of your throw.
The terrain here is treacherous and the lack of light makes it even worse. You can't move quickly without risking falling and injuring yourself. Just as you are thinking that, there's a barrage of bangs and flashes of blue light coming from behind you. For the second the lights last you can see your surroundings perfectly. And when they stop you can see nothing, your nightvision hampered by the sudden bright light. You stumble and fall but keep yourself from tumbling downhill. You lay there for a second, listening. There's no flapping of wings coming to get you, no horrible screeches above you. You can hear monsterbirds but they are all far away. The explosion must have gotten the one that noticed you before it got too far.
Campaign: The Hills of Midnight, off road
Campaign, Ike!
"Well, either your buddy's about to have a real bad time or he's about to die, so let's run like fuck and think about the implications later."
Make like a tree and leave. Take Grim along as well.
Grim emits am angry grunt but gets up and runs away with you. The next Chaos Wave rips Kaya to shreds, leaving behind a husk made of vibrating swords.
The effect eventually begins to subside, the purple energies receding back into their source. Said source is now lying in the middle of a crater surrounded by a field of papers of various shapes and sizes standing upright, depicting crude drawings of flowers, food and other objects. Your sword occasionally flickers into existence above the field. The vibrating sword husk is lying where it was on the edge of the field, swaying slightly.
"Well, that's over." Grim states the obvious.
"And with that, I'm out of here. I'm not staying near those things. I brought them to you as promised and that's that. Now I have to go explain to the Boss why one of his bodyguards just exploded."
Campaign: Nether Pass, the Final Fortress of the Necromancer-Emperor
Alan, Milkshake Deliveryman and God of Unintentional Annoyance
Alan's psyche is a strange place. Were a psychological professional to examine him and survive with their wits intact they would likely, aside from being baffled and annoyed, liken him to a human incarnation of liquified rubber - malleable, able to adapt to many different circumstances, yet even when set still possessing the capacity to bounce in unexpected directions. It's no coincidence that Alan occasionally displays flashes of competence that contrast so severely with his usual lackadaisical performance - within his mind there are multitudes of incomprehensible processes calculating every aspect of the situation he finds himself in, operating his mind according to their own arcane brand of alien logic. It may seem as if his head is merely an empty receptacle for whatever wacky idea passes through, but in those rare moments every fibre of his being becomes a fine-tuned machine, startlingly efficient and almost deadly smooth.
This is not one of those times.
Alan looks up at the colossal alien spider-like being that is in the process of enslaving his essence to its own and has possibly made him into an alien spider thing as well and begins uncontrollably giggling in a very high-pitched tone. This continues on for a while until it very suddenly stops, and Alan looks up at his new friend.
<I must say, you are a bit different than I initially saw you as! Must be the contacts I've never worn. No worries however, no friend is too big for my capacity! We'll be happily hanging in no time, milkshakes in needle-hands.
Hehe. Get it? Because you're a giant spider! This is great, I've been saving up so many puns for an occasion just like this - and there's some skelebros here too, so I can use that stockpile too,> he chortles in a tone that anyone who knows him knows very well means that things are about to get very derivative very quickly.
<I'm glad I can add you to my web of friends, hehe. I can see from the rest of the guys here that people must have a lot of bones to pick with you, but don't worry, I'm a very humerus person, I'm sure we'll connect quickly. You're looking pretty fly, guess you are what you eat! Get it? Get it? Get it? Aw c'mon, I know you don't really have vocal chords probably but that joke had those guys below us rattled - because they're skeletons, geddit? Ah, this is gonna be great! Say, what's your name name? I only know you as Anime Milkshake Girl, but I don't know if spiders really do names. Ooh, can I give you a name? Can I can I can I please please please please please? I'm gonna do it, you gotta have a name, otherwise we won't sound cool as a catchphrase. Lenore? Madison? Charles? Jaqueline? Aline? Lime? Lemon? Citrus fruit - Orangey! Grapefruit! Fruitgrape! Apple! Appline! Oooooh, ooh ooh I know - Amigir, Anime Milkshake Girl for short! You're welcome, I'm here all day. So, now that we know each other, let me tell you about my friends! First is Rickman, and he's just great! You'd get along with him great because he's an alien and you're an alien too. I met him...>
As Alan continues his nonstop stream of excited friend talk, it'd be easy to forget that he promised his new bud pal Amigir milkshakes, but Alan cares about his friends, even if he's known them for less than twenty minutes. He decides to be efficient and just charge up his milkshake beam while he talks, so he can surprise Ammie with just how much literal milkshake he can summon up.
Become excited about being new best friends with a giant necromancer spider and proceed to talk endlessly. Shower her with spider and skeleton puns, bust out all my irrelevant trivia facts about spiders, skeletons, and sperm whales and narwhals I know (only a little more than most kids encyclopedias, but explained very enthusiastically), explain every last detail about all the dumb irreverent stuff I've done with and to everyone I've interacted with so far in this world - including all the times I almost killed myself by accident - and generally go maximum Alan on her. He wants to really get to know his new friend! (OOC reasoning: By golly though I can't really do much about my situation through direct action this will hopefully annoy her enough that she reconsiders mindslaving me or whatever it is she's planning because then she'd have a direct link to Alan's mind forever.)
Oh also while I'm talking, start charging up a milkshake or the closest equivalent I can think of in a manner similar to the Chaos Carrot of aeons past - Ammie's a big girl, she needs a lot of milkshake.
You are still Alan. You are also a strange being, humanoid but with all those extra bits. Your skin is chitinous, your arms and legs are bulkier and sharper, your mouth has mandibles, you have more eyes than you remember and there are new needle-tipped appendages that are currently curled around your chest where your ribs should be. On the plus side your stomach is now back to its original girth. You are also a little girl. You're not exactly sure how that works.
The thing responds to your incessant speaking by chattering its many mouths. You don't know what that's supposed to mean, but you can somehow tell it's enjoying it.
You start charging. A purple light appears through the translucent layers of your stomach, growing brighter.
((Alan trying to use "Horrible Speech" as an attack. That's a fun idea.))
Poll
15 (42.9%)
Author
Topic: Special People: Mechanical Syndrome (Read 1141442 times)