John, Inside the Maximus
Take cover. Can the suit I'm wearing be modified to include some light armor? What about automated medical equipment? Even if it's just stabilizing. Probably the latter first.
You could duct-tape some debris on it and call it armor, sure. It will mess with the suit's ability to radiate heat in vacuum but that doesn't appear to be a concern at the moment, since there's either air or that liquid almost everywhere you've been.
The suit is already equipped to pump you full of blood or chemicals, all you need is the right blood or chemicals
If you're afraid of dying there's always that stasis syringe in the medkit. It should keep you alive long enough for your teammates to heal you or for everyone to die.
Brian Hoss, Maximus: Central Fore Way Station
Check around for some nanite patches, and keep an eye on the other guy.
You take some patches out of your medkit and start applying them on John's back.
Heh. 'Keep an eye out.' Here's a guy who can do this literally.
Kosak Durar:
"Blasted engineer trickery... aha, you're vulnerable!"
Once Kosak hits the wall, he pushes off it and back towards the disoriented enemy. How about some more torso punches?!
You jump at the wrong time, trip on an exposed wire and plant yourself headfirst into a wall. You have a terrible headache and can barely see but somehow manage to remain conscious.
After regaining its bearings, the exoskeleton's pilot makes a combination of motions with their left hand. They become a blurry, indistinct thing, hard to make out in the darkness of the transport tube.
The container and the exoskeleton keep floating away.
The doll has been thoroughly squished. You summon another doll and throw it towards the nearest fire alarm. The 'free Jack'action is a bit vague. I could ask for clarification... Or I can just roll for it.
*rolls*
You follow the two guards to the door leading to the staff-only section, where a third guard awaits them. Seeing that you are about to lose track of him, you have the doll pull the fire alarm. The guards look confused. They are even more confused when you slam into one and the fat doll you just summoned slams into another. Jack slips the five of clubs out of his sleeve, the card glowing for a moment before turning into a club that smashes the third guard's face, sending him through the door. He turns around, raises his arms and brings the club down on the head of the guard you're holding down, taking him out with a splatter of blood.
The guard held by your doll kicks it off of him and reaches for his gun. You kick his hand, preventing him from grabbing it. Jack, no longer armed, attempts to kick him as well, but the guard sweeps his legs and throws him to the floor. Your doll awkwardly trips on the guard and falls on both him and Jack. You kick the guard several times, eventually managing to knock him out (he's really tough).
You move the doll out of the way so that Jack can get up.
"I guess we're doing this the loud way then?" he says with a hint of amusement, slightly out of breath.
Some of the people around you are shocked, most are running away scared.
♚The Doll Prince: Kicking the Hornets' Nest♚
"I just love when a plan comes together!" Napoleon said sarcastically as he eyed the patrons. They seemed to be more alarmed by his rash actions than by the fire alarm. No doubt that the full wrath of the Queen's Tower Casino security is zeroing in on their location. On top of everything, the two of them are about to break into their inner sanctum so to speak. Whatever that awaited them inside the vault have better be worth it. "Sometimes I wonder whether the Queen is still toying with me."
Looking down at one of the guards' pistols, Napoleon bent down and grabbed one. Though he'd never used a gun in his life, oftentimes relying on his dolls to fight off muggers and burglars, even he knew that a sword is all but useless in this situation, plus he'd seen enough modern warfare documentaries to get a basic idea of gun use and safety... sort of. Understandably, this drew several frightened gasps from any patrons who remained, which he ignored as he scanned the floor. In such a spacious area, cover and rapid movement are key to survival and victory when the enemy not only outnumber the both of them but are armed with guns. Sure the slot machines and game tables provided plenty of cover but they may be vulnerable once they get to the security door. Napoleon glanced at his heavyset doll. If his dolls were capable of attacking from range, he would quickly summon and deploy a dollish fire team to cover their advance. Even if some dolls have to be morphed into 'guns' that shoot smaller dolls as ammunition, much like those 'Tyranids' from those Warhammer 40K war games that are all the craze, it seemed a bit hard to do. Sure he has the hive mind to boot but so far he haven't have that sort of luck making something that complex, not that he will pass up the opportunity to improve his ability when things are more quiet. For now, he will have to be content with using swarms of dolls for now.
"Okay, when the red warning panel is revealed, that means the safety is off," Napoleon muttered to himself as he disengaged the pistol's safety. He then turned to Jack as he kept the weapon pointed in a safe direction. "Monseigneur Jack, do you by any chance have any cards that can hypothetically blast or tear through say five or so meters of steel?"
Get into cover and observe the movements of any guards on the floor. Gauging their intentions, move to better cover if the enemy managed to outflank them or otherwise render the current cover useless. Use the fat doll to protect them if necessary. Return fire only when necessary and try not to hit any patrons.
((I love the idea of doll Tyranids.))
"I have the Ace of Spades, it's the best slicer I got. Never tested it against a safe before, but it should work."
You are near the door leading into the Staff Only area. You know there is at least one guard somewhere in there. The guards in the casino floor are still trying to figure out what's going on and struggling against the crowd.
: North access. Code 7. : comes a voice from the radio on one of the guards' belt.
Campaign: On Road
One of the men keeping watch notices a bird flying in quite a strange manner in the horizon, coming towards the camp. Knowing monsterbirds are about, he notifies the rest of the camp. Ike determines that this is most likely a Sovereignty Scout Glider, a high-flying long-distance single-pilot flying machine. You are unsure if it is merely patrolling or if it has been sent here in response to last night's events. You are also unsure about whether or not it has spotted you, but it most likely will, the caravan is too large to hide.
I'm assuming you want that in your normal armor, not the magic water armour pieces, right? And you're wearing the pieces that generate the water armour over your normal armor?
You've got a cloak to use during night time (when the temperature drops) or if the wind picks up (so that you don't get dirt and sand everywhere). During the day I assume you are not constantly in full armor/clothing/equipment but just keep them nearby, otherwise I need to start making endurance rolls against heatstroke. So unless you want to make it really light weight, like some sort of camo net...
Nikolai is not used to this dreadfully warm weather. His world is mostly frigid winter. I guess he will just have to adapt and learn to not be fully covered and equipped almost all the time.
1. Spikes should go on the monster hunter armour. The water armour is supposed to be low coverage shackles and strips of cloth so it shouldn't be hard to put the spikes where they don't interfere. Should probably use some extra loops/straps to keep the water armour in place and prevent it from being stabbed by spikes. Don't go overboard with the spikes, just a few strategically placed ones to stab anyone grabbing me. Vulture talons preferred, otherwise nails. Could the talons still have any residual magic/poison to them?
2. Also try to spike my shield. For deadly shield bashes.
3. Don't worry about the cloak too much. If Lune wants to craft a couple lightweight camo nettings he can but don't let it get in the way of his training or guard duty or anything else.
Nikolai had very many jobs guarding caravans through the wasteland. Sure they were usually much higher tech and more heavily armed, but relevant experience is relevant experience.
4. Make this caravan as safe as possible. Give us the best chances against sovereign attackers.
5. Always have some people scout ahead before we pass through an area. At least one powerful person with a commwire and a group of recruits. They should comm back regularly, and if they stop we know something's wrong.
6. When we stop to make camp, try to find a good defensible location with high ground, chokepoints, etc. Circle the wagons into a wagon fort. Put that cannon wherever it will do the most good. Build barricades, dig shallow trenches and build shallow walls, reinforce wherever the wagons don't protect. Set traps and tripwires outside the camp perimeter. Have at least one powerful person with a commwire and a bunch of recruits keep watch.
7. When we're moving try to stay close together and don't let anyone fall behind or get separated. Watch the sides and rear. Keep that cannon accessible and ready.
8. See about having some recruits build some wooden fortifications on the sides of the wagons to provide some extra cover.
1. Sure, let's say you do that. Only problem I see with that is if you're not focused enough and end up Tsaring only the inner armor you'll rip the outer to shreds. Also, just to clarify, you want Monsterbird or Blood Vulture talons? Monsterbirds have a paralytic poison. Blood Vultures are that carrion bird one of which was following Alan around, is quite intelligent for a bird, has some mild chaos-related abilities.
2. We'll assume you do the same thing you do to your armour.
3. Let us ignore this until it becomes relevant.
4. The best way to make the caravan safe would be to destroy it. If there is no caravan, then there is no danger to it and thus it is completely safe.
5. Better ask those comm-wire equipped players if they are OK with helping you with your plan or get them to hand someone who is their comm-wire, since I don't want to force them to obey you. Unless they're idle, in which case I can just auto them to do something useful.
6. That's doable.
7. That's also doable. You organize the men a bit more, extending the organization you use to handle watch shifts to also include people keeping track of the members of their squads and being responsible for knowing where they are.
8. You can put some boards on the side of the wagons to add some concealment and protection against arrows, however they probably won't fare well against anything heavier. You figure that's as much as you can get without making the wagons too heavy for the animals to carry. You can probably handle Tsaring two of the wagons at the same time, so if necessary you could probably use that to shore up the side of the camp that's under attack by making them more sturdy.
Campaign, Ike!
Assemble the crew! Well, as many of them as I can find anyhow.
"Right! I think I know what our next stop's gotta be - the cavern formerly inhabited by some kind of Leviathan! Apparently pretty damn haunted, humming with water magic and maybe dark magic, should be a pretty good place to resurrect Alan in. Any of you fine people know where that might be? Eastwards seems like the correct direction, but I don't have a clearer idea than that myself."
Crowdsource answers to my vision quest!
You gather anyone willing to listen and get them to tell you everything they know about the story of the great Leviathan.
The master alchemist looks quite annoyed at you for driving away her prey, just as she was trying to find new naive volunteers for her monsterbird-derived potion experiments.
"I guess some people just can't get anything done on their own." she says with annoyance.
The story sounds very... standard. Evil corrupts the land and makes it impossible to live in, the Oracle gives a prophecy that a pure and beautiful young girl must be sacrificed to the monster to stop the corruption, the young girl's fiancée and his faithful steed face hardships as he tries to sabotage the sacrifice and reach the monster and finally the hero arrives in the nick of time to save the girl and kill the monster. The hard part is filtering out any embellishment to the story that might have accrued overtime, made even harder by the fact that magic is relatively common in this world.
It is reasonable to assume the Oracle mentioned in the story is most likely the one in Seroik, one of the villages closest to Nether Pass. It is built atop the ruins of at least two older settlements, which is a bit ironic considering it is a Nexus of powerful Order magic. There is some evidence that a grand Order-related temple housing some sort of Oracle existed there a long time ago. Said temple was subsequently destroyed and used to construct fortifications, turning the settlement into a castle. Nowadays the town is quite diminished and the archeological digs that once attracted scores of mages and historians have been sealed due to rumors of creatures of Darkness and Death lurking within. The biggest thing going for it these days is the large garrison of Kingdom troops and Tower mages stationed there.
The story also mentions being under the shadow of the Gugol mountain range making the girl worse. It is said the hero resorted to such extremes as setting fires to forests to keep the caravan out of the deepest shadows and provide light to the girl. Which, if true, means that the location is somewhere close to the mountains, a place that is lightly forested abd covered by their shadows for a significant amount of time. The road from Kodromota to Nether Pass is rarely used and has fallen to disrepair, however it did saw heavy use in the distant past, so odds would place the location of the Leviathan's home somewhere north of the pass but probably not north enough to reach the point where the mountains cut into the desert.
There are other elements to the story like rock-people that need the hero to answer certain riddles to let him pass, a trickster spirit that tries to tempt him into abandoning his quest, the hero helping an Angel in exchange for its assitance in the final battle... However these sort of things don't offer much insight to the Leviathan's location, nobody has heard about such things or anything that could be related to them existing nearby.
Still, it sounds quite strange that someone powerful enough to kill the Leviathan and accomplish all those great feats wouldn't just attack the caravan and rescue the girl. When asked the general consensus is that that wouldn't be what a real hero would do. There's also the question of how the caravan managed to get past all those dangers when the hero had so much trouble, to which you get several different answers (the hero cleared the path for the caravan to protect his beloved, the hero took a harder but quicker path, the hero was led astray by evil forces, the caravan was accompanied by powerful mages, etc.).
"I could try tsaring the map for extra detail?"
Do so. Look for this secret leviathan cavern on the tsar map.
"You know we have enough water magic if I tsar the small water gem. But I understand wanting to find better source of water magic so I can tsar Alan's eyes instead. Maybe even get more powerful tsar Alan that way?"
"Wow. I guess to you everything looks like a nail. Have you ever considered that perhaps there might be other solutions to all of life's problems than 'make huge'?""I see only a hammer on your belt as well.""Yes, but my hammer is huge. And when you have a huge enough hammer, everything really is a nail.""My thoughts exactly. And with my power, I can get the hugest hammer.""No, you don't get it, my hammer is hugest.""No, mine!""No, mine is hugest because we're talking about metaphorical hammers!""Well, I can grab your metaphorical hammer and make it bigger, thus mine is bigger!""How can you grab my metaphorical hammer if it's metaphorical?!""Metaphorically!""Well, I'll use my metaphorical hammer to metaphorically-!"*ahem*...
"She started it!""He started it!""I don't care. Get on with it or you're both grounded."With a bit of grumbling and something to prove you pour as much Tsar energy as you can into it.
The map becomes a giant thing the size of a small sports field, covering everyone like a giant blanket.
"I think this might be a bit too huge."She speaks madness. How can something become 'Too huge'?.
...
You focus on the trail of ink representing the road, one eye closed, using your finger to keep track of it.
"You know it's not going to work, right? This is just a waste of time."You slowly trace the twisting line between the folds of the gigantic map.
"The chaotic energy just distorts the map, it doesn't add anything useful."The map has become sort of three dimensional, castles, temples, mountains and canyons running through it.
"Please tell me we won't have to suffer through this for the entire day.""Argh, you made me lose it.""There's nothing to lose because there's nothing to follow. If you find anything it will be by pure dumb luck.""If you're so smart why don't you just help me find this instead of annoying me?""Ah, but I rather enjoy watching you struggle while I say 'I told you so'. And besides, I bet 2 gold coins you couldn't do it."*grumble* "Now, if we're here... And the road is over there... No, wait... We wanna go...""I hope this has given you a bit of a perspective about-"Perspective! That's it! I just need a better vantage point.""That's not what I-""I know what the problem is. I'm going to have to go into the map.""Oh, yes, that's the solution. Ignore the woman who is literally a master of magic and has spent her whole life studying it."[/sarcasm]
You ignore her and head into the map.
*sigh* "Bored now. Who's up for free drinks at my tent?"There are only indistinct excuses and the hasty thumping of boots given as response.
"Oh, come on, don't be such babies. A bit of magical experimentation never hurt anyone!"...
After several minutes of climbing through the paper landscape of the map with nothing to show for it but a few new holes in it, it might be time to concede that she might have been right,
((AUGH, my post didn't go through for last turn?! 
My action without the flavor was: Keep up the morale; do delve into the prisoners' rapport more! in brief, because mercenaries and 'we're not part of your disgusting war'.
Also posting in brevity due to exams until Sunday here))
Check on San and River, then check our group comms to see if these wires can still communicate well--do work on improving and maintaining morale, but also the equipment/battle readiness of everyone else!
Theri contacted the others, including Irine. "Where I come from, we call information intelligence--did anyone manage to gather information about why these were setup as is, and for whom were these defenses meant for? We're heading into a militarized zone at this pace, and I'm weary of the outcome with these prospects in technology."
((Take your time, RL comes first.))
The mercenaries retort that if this isn't your war then you have no reason to hold them and you should let them go.
San was worried about you and last night's events, staying awake until you returned safely. Today he is much more cheerful. You are approaching his home, which means that he will finally be in a familiar place and hopefully be reunited with his father.
River stayed close to you during the night, but today he is more relaxed. He either lies down, follows you around or plays with San but doesn't do much else. He appears much healthier and growing quickly.
Wires still work well. On these mostly empty areas they appear to be working much better, their range greatly increased.
You (along with Nikolai) participate in several combat-readiness improvement projects.
((Action to be expanded upon later, getting the basic version in now because dont want to cause delays.))
1. Look into locating and teaching untapped magical talent among the villagers.
2. Attempt to apply order-magic
3. Attempt to apply creation-magic
4. Discuss magical theory and the nature of fire, order, and creation with trisword and water mages.
5. play tug-o-war (with fire) with trisword to gauge each other's strength.
6. keep myself expanded around the camp and ready to resist dark magic assaults, but except in evenings when expecting attack will prefer being in hybrid form. Fox-form while expecting attack.
7. Check for side-effects from being within me for an extended period.
1. Such an endeavour won't be easy, there is no quick way to determine who can be a mage since they are not significantly different from other people. Theoretically everyone can cast magic under the right circumstances, the ability of most people to cast spells that activate magical objects is proof of that. In a mage magic of their element is stronger within them and it's easier for them to influence its flow but the Sword is not capable of sensing such things with great detail. Even if you found anyone capable of casting magic they would most likely be weak and would require lots of training, since those powerful enough to be easily detectable would have been taken by the Tower or the Army. Still, there's no harm in trying. Remind me to get you the results after some time has passed.
2. The Sword explains the basic truth of Order as it understand it, which is the desire to impose and follow the Law. Though there are things that are fundamentally Lawful, Order concerns itself with all Laws one can create and adhere to. Most Order spells can be seen as the creation and enforcement of systems of Law. The further the Law moves from the truth of the caster and the fundamental truth, the harder the spell gets.
The Sword summons an orb of magical fire and tries to direct you to disspell it by dissasembling and counteracting the disorder its existence creates, however this approach proves too difficult for you. You are unable to make any progress and oftentime accidentally end up using your Fire abilities while concentrating on destroying it. You instead focus on something simpler. By the end of the day you are able to momentarily link the state of two pebbles, causing one to wobble slightly when the other one falls. It's not great progress, but the Sword assures you that this will be better with practice.
3. The Sword tries its best to describe the concept of Creation magic to you and you think you are able to grasp the basics, but from what you can understand even it isn't capable of grasping the concept in its entirety. While the concept behind it is hard to understand, its effects are more clear, basically being able to emulate most other forms of magic but also being easily corruptable by them. You try to use it to create the tiniest of magical effects but all you get is either accidentally using Fire or causing yourself a headache.
4. The Sword says that the incomprehensible God of All Elements is responsible for this world. The world always contained the concepts of Creation and Void. However the two were too incompatible, too opposing and thus of no interest. So from those two God created the Elements and their gods. God used them to seperate Creation and Void, hiding one inside the other. The gods were given their share of the knowledge of the God and were set loose upon the world while the God watched. Empowered by the constant Flow between Creation and Void they went on to fight against each other, creating and destroying through their efforts and conflicts. Their actions, their creations and their corpses themselves brought new life and with it new conflict. And so it came to be that the gods became but a shadow of their former selves, leading to a world shaping and evolving itself, a world they could only influence but no longer rule. And so it shall continue until all conflict becomes omnipresent and the world becomes irrelevant.
That's what the Sword remembers anyway.
It says that one could say that Creation represents this raw potential in the world while Void represents its change and eventual destruction, the Flow between the two giving rise to everything in between.
5. The strength of your abilities are linked, so in a way it's kinda like pulling one arm with the other to see which is stronger. Still, there does appear to be a difference, perhaps different pools in which your strength flows or different ways it is channeled. You have the advantage in endurance, being able to maintain your abilities for far longer while the Sword has the advantage in strength, being able to easily perform great feats of strength but requiring time to recover afterwards.
6. Consider it done.
7. It's been something less than a day since you started and you haven't seen anything wrong during that time, nobody has grown an extra arm or started speaking in tongues or anything as overt as that. Still, it does appear that everyone is... you're not sure how to describe it. More energized, maybe? More anxious? More eager? They get up earlier, work harder, yell more, laugh more, argue more. It appears to be managable for now, nothing the more cool-headed (no pun intended) couldn't manage. As long as things don't escalate it should be fine.
Still, now that you think about it... In the ruins of the city, everyone appeared jumpy, restless, quick to argue, quick to fight. Even your group turned from extreme euphoria to fighting and infighting within instants. At the time it seemed normal, everyone was under a lot of stress, everyone had to face traumatic experiences. But could it be that it was also influenced by the strong Flow of Fire which was no longer contained by the Tower? The Sword says it's definitely possible, magical Flows can influence people's thoughts and feelings just as those thoughts and feelings influence magical Flows. There are even spells in Fire magic that can enhance certain emotions or convert emotions to certain effects.
"Maybe even get more powerful tsar Alan that way?"
((This is the best idea and I highly encourage trying it for the funzies.))
Alan, Magical Spider Princess
”What sorta magical girl stuff? Because I highly disagree with the proposition that becoming a Witch by succumbing to despair is inevitable, and you don’t need to wish away entropy to fix a broken system. But that’s for YouTube comment chains, a dark and desolate realm all on their own. I wanna go have fun!”
What sort of errands does Ammie want me to run in any case? Find out and then start heading wherever I need to go to accomplish the first of them.
((Alan appears to be playing for the enemy team for now, until whatever resurrection ritual you guys magic up interacts in some way with his current state of being. Knowing him, this is the worst thing Ammie could’ve possibly done for herself, though she doesn’t know it yet.))
((inb4 Alan is perfectly competent as a member of the enemy team.))
Though everyone screams at your mention of YouTube comments (or perhaps because Ammie is transforming them, but most likely the former) she has no trouble understanding you. You immediately know that you are supposed to go through the portal and act like her while she's away. Oh, so it's like one of those movies, where two similar-looking girls secretely pretend they are the other and go live with each other's family and get into all sorts of antics.
You approach the place her servants use as a gate, the passage between two roots, and raise your arm. Arcane symbols appear in the air, condensing into a swirling portal. Hmmm... That's a bit disconcerting. The good guys almoost never use portals, they're always restricted to gates until the end of the story. Oh well. You step through the portal. You distort around the world, becoming thinner and longer as you stretch through the holes in the world. You emerge on the other side and return to normal (your new normal).
The other side is quite similar but much more organic. There are many more roots, many more mushrooms, many more bones and rotting corpses. Immediately you feel the power here, all the strength Ammie was sharing with you instantly doubling. You remember that this place is a dead bird, but it is also a city and a palace. Ammie had to be here but also had to be where she is right now. Wiith you here she can focus on being the person she wants to be so she can float away.
You walk up through the dead bird's bones that are also stairs. The guards and the workers installing the elevator greet you with respect. They inform you of an obligation. You're supposed to meet with your step-father. But you're not really in the mood for it. You'd much prefer to go see if the new friends you created are doing well. But he does get quite mad if you're late... Hmmm... What to do...
I had a few different ideas for powers. What I think I like the most is the ability to detect people's intents. See what everyone around is going to try to do next. And also seeing their position, so I can tell if someone's behind a wall or I'm not facing them.
Half wallhacks, half physic BS, half that thing in batman arkham asylum were a Y appears over a dude's head and then you press Y. Approximately 1.5 of powerful, despite being fully sensory. ;P
Edit: and because it appears that I should also specify the origin of my power at this stage, I'll say that this sense is granted by an organic symbiont (mutualistic or parasitic depends entirely on how useful you consider the ability to sense intents to be to the host organism. It's not unheard of for things considered to be parasites to help the host in some way, and I certainly never signed up for this.) living somewhere in my skull, replacing some stuff I wasn't using. Much.
Ah, and it make it clearer exactly how I intend this to function:
This power does allow me to:
Tell what any within creature the radius is intending to do next.
Find the position of any creature within the radius that has an intent, regardless of line-of-sight.
And it does not allow me to:
Read anyone's mind, emotional state, or their plans beyond the very next step.
Do anything to the physical world outside myself. IE this is a power that effects only my own senses.
Communicate telepathically, suggest things, mind-control people.
See anything that doesn't have a mind, or that simply isn't intending to do something, such as a remote-controlled robot, a trap, a carnivorous plant, or a very bored person.
Actually see the future. I can tell what people WANT to do, I can't tell if they'll succeed or what the exact results will be of that action, especially if they don't know themselves.
Where's the fun in a psychic ability constantly streaming other people's minds into yours if you can choose to turn it off, though? ;P
It can be will-resistible, and cover a fairly small area, but not something that ever goes away. Will-resisted things can just be too noisy to make out, but not faint enough to avoid causing a headache.
Don't see why needing to include information about the intention of people around me would require much more writing than any other power really. It certainly wouldn't require more writing than me having the power to hear really well, for example. If I end up fighting players it's just a perfectly good excuse to peek at their action posts if they're in range and failed the will save.
I don't see how making you write more will be less fun for me, though~
Though I am obviously a fan of Sherlock style bullettime mind-palace superthinking.
Oh, you edited your post. I didn't notice that. Let's add that here for ease of reference. Yes, it is quite useful.
Hmm... OK, let's try it. I think I've figured out how to handle it.
Give a name. Some backstory would also help. A description, while optional, would be nice.
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Topic: Special People: Mechanical Syndrome (Read 1149115 times)