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[Rolepgeek]

Hope ya feel better. Being sick sucks.

...I'm not good at offering comfort over the internet. Sorry. >.<

[Aklyon]

Aaaaaaa. So, for reasons I'd rather not bring up on the internet, unless I update on wednesday, there will be no update until next week. But at least I'm not sick, I guess.
Cycle 53

Master Arcanist: Emissary of Crystal, are you here? The meeting has convened here as I said it would.

No need to shout, no need to shout. I have returned here. Will you introduce our grand meeting members to us, Master Arcanist?
Master Arcanist: This is Siege General Wanor, Commander Breq, and Mayor Yoz.
[nodding ensues]

As interesting as a meeting for us is, we do have more pressing issues elsewhere, can the further formalities, if any, be skipped? Please do not take that as an offense.

Mayor Yoz: I suppose, though why are you in a hurry, Emissary?

Not a hurry, exactly. More of an extended watching time on a dangerous subject. It would delay too much to detail.

Commander Breq: Information obtainment over a long period of time, I get it.
Mayor Yoz: I will ask the first question: Someone was worried about seeing a shiny mass of rock crystal near the stone quarry yesterday. Are you involved?

The cavern is rock and air. What was once only rock will return to rock with time.

Mayor: Not much of an answer, Volz.
Master Arcanist Volz: The elements are not always direct with their answers.

Siege General Wanor: Can you crush the Outsider's wall for us!

What a direct and obvious-pointed question. Despite that, it was asked with enthusiasm, so it will be answered: No. To do so would destroy both sides.

Both the siege general and the commander slam the table at this response.
Commander Breq: Why not? Why are we even meeting with you then, if you will not take our side, Earthen one?!

Aether arcana has sent knowledge of what they have elsewhere, above the moon. Is this the only subject the meeting was called upon?
At this point you're just making things up, but checking to see if the Alteri have any ships in orbit would be a superb idea once you've convinced them you aren't going to be defeated easily.

Mayor Yoz: Well, my question was answered, in a way that confirms why I have little interest in the arcane in comparison to Volz; and the two boys over there have work to do. Do you have anything to ask of us, Emissary of Crystal?

We have heard, through rumor and pessimism, that the Chained are likely going to be released again. Details, if you could give us any, would be appreciated.

Master Arcanist Volz: Mayor?
Commander & Siege General: Sir?
Mayor Yoz sighs, and stands up from his chair. "How to put this...You know we must follow the Proxian Way, crystalline one? We are out of options. The wall must be brought down and the siege executed to completion. The outsiders must be expelled, or failing that, executed. Breaking tradition now in the face of this new, powerful enemy would be as unspeakable as the collateral damage the Chained will cause. If the Way can simply be swept aside by superior firepower, what point is there in staying here?" Volz then stands up to speak.

"The ground between here and their accursed fortress will be warped with damage, the sky will be torn asunder and turn dark during the day and bright during the night as their fortress is obliterated by a hail of darkflyme over a fortnight, and a dozen of the younger folk will have been sacrificed for the greater good. But when the sky clears, when the ground stops quaking, when our friends have stopped grieving over the sacrificed, we will still be here, more or less. Then, we rebuild, and we scavenge what remains of their technological advantage so that we can stop them without the oldest of ways if they return. Nothing has resisted the Darkflyme before, nothing shall. Stronger than Solfire, bathed in the blood of the sacrificed, it is the essence of Proxian rage and destruction, and the cornerstone of the Way's stability in the face of all opposition."

Thank you.

As you rest from the monotone again, the description is worryingly detailed and the master arcanist was deadly serious in his tone. With the fortress at risk (and thus the fusion reactor), you begin to wonder which would be a worse outcome, Darkflyme or orbital bombardment.

But there is other things to be doing, and you put the issue aside. You plan out and reserve energy for an arms crystal in every sizable room of the fortress except the command room while you ask the diplomat on the alterin side to see where Bor is.

Hey, you.

Alteri 1: Eh? Who said that...oh. Its you isn't it, mr. crystal.

Maybe.

"I'm not as dumb as Jim, you know. Anyway, since you're actually here, I have news for you. Command refuses to speak to a rock until they know more. Is that offensive?"

You amethyst.

"That is somewhat offensive, so I'll assume the same for rock. Next, Senior Scientist Bor said that he will speak a second time with you, if you will actually give a direct answer."

There is a decent chance of such.

"He wanted more of a definitve response than that, I'd guess. But anyway, thats it, aside from a request for a proper sample I doubt you'll give us. So do you want to talk to him or not?"

Yes. And you are indeed smarter than Jim for doubting that.

While Outpost fortress (poorly, due to the partial-assimilation) tracks his movement throughout the fortress so you know when he's arrived, you rearrange research with a new priority in mind, and upgrade some crystals while adding more repair crystals and clearing up the almost-degraded assimilation. You also explore below the reactor a bit, and find another cavern about half the width of the reactor but twice the height.

Senior Scientist Bor: Hey, Crystalline. The guard said you felt like talking to me again, so whats the news?

Well, you wanted a more direct answer, did you not?

"Indeed. So whats your point here in being so direct?"

Would you mind opening that door behind you? You will see momentarily, assuming the door is opened.

You prepare to trigger the first point you were going to plant a arms crystal at; if it goes as planned, to him it should look like you need line of sight from the diplomatic crystalline to do things, hehe. You've switched to more of a subterfuge angle than proper diplomacy, but knowledge is power after all, and Bor does not know more than you yet.

Bor: I suppose.

After he opens the door, you trigger the energy reserve you'd setup earlier in the cycle, and one arms crystal worth of energy comes zooming throughout the lines of crystal and attuned forgite towards the point you had selected, resulting in said crystal being fabricated on the wall you can see through the open doorway.

"Aha. So, if you can see it, you can fabricate crystal there. But, surely that was not wireless, hmm? You aren't trying to brute-force the forgite after all. You just need one wire."

I'd been wondering if you'd figured it out or not. But yes, you were wrong before and yet right. With enough energy-mindedness, one does not need to physically penetrate with energy weaponry; one can simply burrow through sections of forgite by following signals in one of your multitude of wires. Of course, the problem is that means we cannot spare the effort to peer into whatever communications that wire has.

"Admission of imperfection is respectable, but I believe you're hiding something. Surely we couldn't have missed something so simple, and if you have that much energy on hand, you could pay attention to the wire and the travel at once."

A proper amount of skeptism for xenodiplomacy, but misplaced here. You are thinking as an Alteri, a mobile independant individual, not as a mind within endless pools of energy flowing within beautifully aligned crystal structures. The two are far too different to be swept aside as 'a simple mistake', if you'll excuse the minor embellishment in describing our point of view. More focus leads to more detail, split focus leads to inefficiency unless there are a sufficient number of separate viewpoints. There is not a sufficient number yet.

Again, not exactly true: You can multitask just fine. But that more you distract him from your true potential, the more you fool them all. The reveal can come later, when they think things are in their favor, not yours.

Bor: So, your point is that you can see anywhere in the fortress, given enough time.

There are a few places we judged were unlikely to be used by anything and ignored due to having no apparent entrances or exits, but otherwise yes.

"Oh? Describe them and perhaps I can prove you wrong one a point, you smug thing."

One was very small. Incredibly small. There was a box inside it and nothing else. The stairs leading to it had been replaced at the top with flooring, rendering it inaccessible. High chance it is a old compartment and minimal chance it is a hiding place.

Bor frowns. "Yes...you are probably right there. Next."

A large room with sizable devices at both ends of the room. No elevatus or staircase access. High chance it was previously a command room. Low chance it currently is in use.

Bor grins. "That one however, you are wrong about. It is the reserve command center in case of destruction of the easily accessible by stairs one. One out of two is more than I'd expected you to be correct about, however, and I have more interesting work to get back to than trying to pry more details out of you. Again it feels like I have gotten the worse end of the bargain here."

Perhaps, yet you've seen what we can do. without giving out any technology. Surely that gives you the upper hand?

"You should stop always trying to have the last word, because now I most certainly have that, after being reminded." Bor says as he laughs and walks off again.

Spoiler: The Core (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Status (click to show/hide)

Integrity: Intact
Max fabrication cost: 15k

Diplomacy:
-Proxians: Known as Emissary of Crystal of the Terra Arcanum. Met the council, learned of the Chained's effect when unleashed.
-Alterin Imperium: Messed with an Alteri named Jim previously. Continued to talk to Senior Scientist Bor.

Stored Energy: 4,735 (83,485)
Reserved Energy: 78,750 (Fortress arms crystals)
Storage effect: Of course theres no effect, you've past 1 million in maximum safe capacity and then some!

Energy Generation:
Core: 100/cycle
Low-Q: 0 @ 20/cycle - 0/cycle
Refined: 6748 @ 50/cycle - 337,400/cycle
Repair Crystal: 280 @ 50/cycle - 14,000/cycle
Med-As. [8]: 1966 @ 130/cycle - 255,580/cycle
Med-As. [9]: 2090 @ 140/cycle - 292,600/cycle

Total Energy production: 899,680/cycle

Research Distribution:
Focus: Conveyor Crystal - 20
Movement - 5
Camouflage - 6
Durability - 6
Weaponry - 6
Energy Efficiency - 6
Storage Efficiency - 6
Non-Typical Crystalline Formations - 1
Containment/Protection(hazardous materials/energy) - 6
Core - 30
Forgite Details - 7
Forgite Fabrication - 2
Alterin - 6
Alterin technology - 10
Proxian Glyphs - 5
Proxians - 6
Geology/Environment/Astronomy - 6

Location: Subsurface/Amidstfortress of an unknown planet with two 'warring' races on it.

Spoiler: Map legend (click to show/hide)

Navy Blue - Crystal core
Teal - Low-Q crystals
Light Blue - Refined crystals
Orange w/ black S - Storage crystals
Brighter Orange w/ black S - High-Density Storage Crystal
Orangeish Red w/ black S - Energy Vault Crystal
Navy/Blue Striped - Fully Integrated Forgitar Half-crystal
Grey/Black/Navy Striped - Partially Assimilated Forgite
Black/Navy Striped - Attuned Forgite
Dark Cyan - Feeler Crystal
Turquoise with small diamond - Farseer Crystal
Black with Turquoise diamond - Palantir Crystal
Purple/Orchid - Focusing Crystal
Darker Purple - Overseer Crystal
Orange /w Light Green outline - Shield Crystal
Purpleish - Repair Crystal
Dark Cyan w/black cross-shaped overlay - Arms Crystal
Gold w/ blue S - Processor Crystal
Blue w/ gold S - Research Crystal
Gold w/ blue infinity - Server Crystal
Red - Diplomatic Crystalline
---
Dark Brown - Empty underground space
Light Brown - Dirt or other non-solid material
Grey - Rock
Sky Blue - Empty inside or aboveground space
Teal w/brown diamond - Low-assimilation matter
Teal w/grey diamond - Medium-assimilation matter
Grey/Black Striped - Forgite
Sky Blue w/small diamond - Mobile thing
Sky Blue w/ rectangle outline - Door
Sky Blue w/ question mark - [Unknown tech]
Sky Blue w/ inverted Amethyst T - Alterin impact-teleporter tech
Sky Blue w/ Amethyst T - Alterin normal-teleporter tech
Sky Blue w/ Amethyst O - Alterin force microshield tech
Black - Unknown
---
Red cross-shaped overlay - Damaged
Red X overlay - Heavily damaged

Spoiler: Crystal forms (click to show/hide)

Core Crystal
Your core. If this can be replicated, you don't remember how.
Energy production: 100/cycle

Low Quality Crystal
Created by converting materials not able to become better tiers, like dirt.
Energy production: 20/cycle.
Fabrication cost: 100 energy, nearby material.

Refined Crystal
Created by converting solid materials, like rock. Also made by refining the structure of Low quality crystals.
Energy production: 50/cycle
Fabrication cost: 200 energy, nearby solid material.
Refinement cost: 400 energy, LQ crystal connected to the core. (300 if adjacent to another refined crystal)
Level reference: Lv.1 energy production (Refined-level)

Storage Crystal
A hunk of additional crystal, giving you more room to store energy without side effects.
No energy production
Fabrication cost: 200 energy and 1 empty space per section. Connected storage sections give greater results than scattered ones. In emergencies, the empty space can be replaced with 100 energy and a low quality crystal.
Level reference: Lv.0 Storage bonus (for storage calculation, for point fabrication treat this as part of No energy production)
---
Feeler Crystal
Little more than a hunk of crystal, but a sturdy scout nonetheless.
No energy production
Fabrication cost: 1,250 energy (2.5 points).
Refined Conversion cost: 625 energy
Level reference: Freebuild, Removed energy production

Farseer Crystal
An excellent companion to the feeler. Energy production alignments have been realigned for exceptional sensory range instead.
No energy production
Fabrication cost: 3,000 energy (6 points)
Level reference: Extended Vision 6 (9 total vision), Removed energy production

Palantir Crystal
I see you.
No energy production
Fabrication cost: 12,250 energy (24.5 points), 6,125 energy to upgrade from Farseer.
Level reference: Vision Network (+1 sight range for every 4 crystals of this type connected), Extended Vision 17 (20 total), Base: Farseer (Refined)

High-Density Storage Crystal
Store more, hold more, contain more, add more synonyms here.
No energy production
Fabrication cost: 750 energy (1.5 points) or 375 energy (if converting from base storage), 1 empty space per section or 1 storage crystal each.
Level reference: Storage bonus 3, Base: Storage

Energy Vault Crystal
[additional synonyms for 'More space!' continued from the High-density description]
No energy production
Fabrication cost: 3,000 energy (6 points) or 1,500 energy (if converting from lower storage), 1 empty space per section or 1 storage crystal each.
Level reference: Storage bonus 6, Base: Storage

Focusing Crystal
Half conduit, half relay point, all-around pretty useful crystal.
No energy production
Fabrication cost: 3,250 energy (6.5 points), not adjacent to other outposts or core.
Level reference: Outpost minor, Energy transformation 5 (-25% to energy costs within 3 tiles), Removed energy production.

Overseer Crystal
Can do things, unlike the Focusing crystal. (Not greatly, but progress is progress)
No energy production
Fabrication cost: 11,750 energy (23.5 points), not adjacent to other outposts or core. 5,875 energy to upgrade from Focusing crystal, empty space and full cost required to upgrade from base storage crystal.
Level reference: Outpost major, Energy transformation 5 (-25% to energy costs within 3 tiles), Durability 3, Data Storage 3 (basically dumb AI, more general-purpose than the version in the Server crystals), General Oversight 6 (basic independent capabilities if cutoff from core (from lv.5), emergency energy generation of 1/subcycle when cutoff (from lv.6), Base: Focusing/Storage (data variant).

Diplomatic Crystalline
Its a diplomat. Occasionally aggressive in its negotiations.
No energy production
Fabrication cost: 4,500 energy (9 points), not adjacent to other outposts or core.
Level reference: Outpost major, Communications, Durability 5, Removed energy production, Base: Focusing (Refined)

Shield Crystal
Not particularly great cover. But it should work.
No energy production, storage converted to camouflage.
Fabrication cost: 2,500 energy (5 points)
Level reference: Extended Vision (4 total), Durability 4, Base: Storage

Repair Crystal
A good helper.
Energy production: 50/cycle
Fabrication cost: 4,750 energy (9.5 points)
Level reference: Repair 5 (-25% to cost of non-severe repairs, autostabilizes ruined Low-Q within 3 tiles at minimal survival amount.)

Processor Crystal
Because doing everything yourself is slow and complicated.
No energy production, stores data instead of energy.
Fabrication cost: 5,000 energy (10 points)
Level reference: Research 8 (tier 1 speed, almost 2), Base: Storage (Data variant)

Arms Crystal
Avast! Yar've been boarded! *pew*
No (internal) energy production
Fabrication cost: 5,250 energy (10.5 points)
Level reference: Base: Feeler (Refined), Durability 3, Energy Blast 4 (tested by Alteri: Infantry piercing shot.)

Research Crystal
*ominous hummm*
No energy production, stores data instead of energy.
Fabrication cost: 13,500 energy (27 points), 6,750 energy to converting up from processor crystal.
Level reference: Research 20 (T4), Base: Storage (Data variant)

Server Crystal
Its more of a Data Overseer, but you thought of this name first.
No energy production, stores data instead of energy.
Fabrication cost: 4,250 energy (8.5 points), 2,125 energy to convert up from processor crystal.
Level reference: Research Oversight 5 (somewhat better chance for early happenings), Data Storage 3 (Can support research in general ways as well as store data effectively), Base: Storage (Data variant)

Blast Crystal
Boom!
No (internal) energy production
Fabrication cost: 4,500 (9 points)
Level reference: Durability 3, Energy Blast 2, Multidirectional 2, Base: Arms (Refined)

Beam Crystal
*ominous laser noises*
No (internal) energy production
Fabrication cost: 7,750 energy (15.5 points)
Level reference: Durability 3, Energy Beam 3, Multidirectional 2, Multiple Attacks 2 (penalty for using previous two abilities together at only one target) Base: Arms (Refined)

Fully Integrated Forgitar Half-crystal
The pride of the Alterin Imperium's materials research field, renowned for is near-invincibility to energy weaponry, defeated and repurposed.
Superior energy conduit, no energy production. Prime candidate for improving the core with, if you can find out how to fabricate more of the material (and precisely enough for core use)
Integration cost: 120,000 energy, 1 chunk of Forgite. Currently limited to 4 integrations per cycle to prevent dangerous levels of strain on unimproved core energy flow capabilities.
Fabrication cost: Unknown.
Level reference: Half-crystal, Forgite Resistance
---
Assimilated matter conversion cost: Remainder of the cost to crystal form +50 per cycle its been there.

Low-assimilation matter
Created by not fully converting low-tier matter.
Will crumble into dust in 5 cycles, leaving an empty space.
Energy production: 50/40/30/20/10 per cycle. Crumbles on the next energy pulse once it hits 10/cycle.
Fabrication cost: 50 energy, nearby material.

Medium-assimilation matter
Created by not fully converting matter eligible to become Refined Crystal.
Will degenerate into low-assimilated matter in 10 cycles.
Energy production: 150/140/130/120/110/100/90/80/70/60 per cycle. Degenerates on next pulse after reaching 60/cycle.
Fabrication cost: 100 energy, nearby solid material.

[Twi]

Diplomancy!

Sadly I don't have much input on the diplomantic side of things, so we should give ourselves something else to do, at least for the interest of player input.

Dig down. Do some geological surveying and/or find a place to hide if all goes to hell. Just to be safe.

[Twi]

ker-bump? D:

[XXXXYYYY]

PTW, if this lives. (please don't die)

[Aklyon]

Its certainly not dead. But like I said in the top of the previous post, things ensued and I'm not at home to update it for a bit.

[Twi]

* Twi shakes fist at the things

[Aklyon]

We could just do more exploring instead I guess, since it seems like theres not much in favor of more diplomacy. But theres more interesting things than more ground to look at.
Cycle 53, about to tick over to 54

Enough talking with the scientist. He is unlikely to give out the details you require, while with some effort and a significant mass of energy, you could enforce control over the reactor. But that would take a significant number of cycles you aren't in favor of spending, until the diplomatic crystalline near the fortress suggests an idea: Hack into the fortress security AI and effectively become lord of the network, then acquire the forgite data along with anything else that strikes your fancy.

The problem with that being, you don't know how to hack into any of their stuff. Everything you've caught so far was either said to you directly, or unencrypted. Encryption, unlike languages, is stubborn and not decrypted easily, and you do not have all the time in the world with the Proxians' threat of releasing what the Chained is holding upon your more interesting subject.
This leaves you with two directions to go in: Research could be halted and redirected in its entirety to decryption and get it done relatively quickly depending on the strength of it. Or, you could be direct about things for once and just murder the xenophobic proxians, then take your time breaking your way into the Alterin network.

Alternately, you could wait and see if the Chained is a physical object or an energy being of somekind. You could control the latter exceptionally easily and warp the Proxians' last resort against them without revealing your own firepower to the Alteri, but at the risk of losing the fortress before you can redirect its attack if you have to convert it physically instead.

[Twi]

Option four: Steal the Chained and waste it to show that you can, thus forcing the Proxians to do your bidding.

[~Neri]

Let's find the chained.

I think it should be the primary priority, we are much too close to the surface for that to be anything besides the primary priority.

[Aklyon]

That wouldn't waste it as much as make it take an arbitrarily long time to recharge.

As far as ooc descriptions go, The Chained is sorta like a combination of chozo statue and phazon beam. Big statuesque thing that holds a powerup doom fire in it and doesn't let go unless you unlock it properly. Or just dump enough mana into it with sacrifices if the proxians are worried enough.

[Twi]

So go find the chained and steal the doom fire for personal use?

[Aklyon]

Its a bit more complicated than finding it on the surface/caverns of the planet. The Proxians are particularly good at their kind of magics (summoning, glyphs, general spellcasting), rather crap at architecture, and somewhat medieval, to sum them up in three parts.

[Twi]

...Still seems like it could be a fun thing to do. And it would make sure the Proxians don't blow everything up, obviously.

[Aklyon]

Well, they're not trying to blow everything up, they kinda want the outsider alteri tech intact at the end of the day so they can steal borrow it. They just know from previous altercations that bringing the chained into the picture is ensuring collateral damage on a ruinous sort of scale and don't care enough anymore.