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[TheBiggerFish]

{Incidentally, I'll be gone for four days starting tomorrow. So I'll update us out of this scenario in a few hours and y'all can get to journal-ing while I'm MIA.}

((It has been a few hours.))

[Amperzand]

{It has indeed. I just finished making dinner.}

As those of us still uninjured gather around the two winches, a large group of jumpy, heavily armed, and very concerned soldier-conscripts arrive, and after a quick explanation of events are slightly more concerned, jumpier, and very eager to be slightly further away from what's happening.

Aside from three unlucky enough to be grabbed to help with the task at hand, fifty dwarven soldiers form a secure perimeter around our group, up to and including the particularly strong veteran of previous wars who has been assigned the unenviable task of lugging an eighty kilo lever operated 20mm repeating cannon and its tripod out through a kilometer of fungal underbrush to set up heavy fire support for any further threats.

The beast, encouraged to maintain a useful temperature by a steady stream of small morsels of difficult-to-build precision steel equipment provided by Spark, watches curiously as we gather around the heavy lift scaffolding, checking ropes and supports for damage before, at last, beginning the process of removing the shard.

Creaking ropes, grating metal, spatters of liberated molten steel, the coarse sort of noises made by a group of soldiers and engineers assigned an unpleasant task. The shard moves by inches, further agitating the beast, but it seems to understand our purpose and does not interfere.

Nearly an hour later, the last few inches of iron-smeared diamond tear themselves free of the massive hole they left in our hopeful ally with a somewhat unusual metallic slurping noise, leaving nearly two tonnes of precious stone suspended in midair over the Beast.

It waits until we cautiously move the shard out to the side and lower it to the ground before, rather suddenly, beginning to writhe its way free of the congealed puddle the wound built around it, heating itself to even higher temperatures as it seeks to burn its way through hardened steel.

Then, in a blink and a flash, it is free. Twenty meters and at least fifty tonnes of living steel slithers over the ground to form a circle completely around our group, raising its head over us at a slight angle as huge blade-pinioned wings spread out to either side, one crumpled and punctured, the other pristine.

The rent in its side remains, a hole that passes through some quite fascinating internal structures to show a view of the ground on the other side, somewhat distorted by the blast-furnace heat of the thing's interior.

Suddenly, we, all of us, even the comatose Patham and his sentient pet, feel a mind entirely alien searching ours, something with far too much willpower to consider resistance. After mere seconds, the consciousness recedes slightly. Then, not words. Impulses of meaning on a very base level, something below emotion or instinct, simple enough that the basest levels of your own brains translate them to the closest relevant equivalent, projected with enough force to thoughtlessly shatter the mind of any who attempted resistance.



FREE

HATE

FIGHT

WOUND

PAIN

TRAPPED

LIGHTNOISESOUNDWORSEPAIN

WORSEPAIN

MORETRAPPED

HATE

BURNHATE

HATECAUSECHANGE

CONFUSION

HATETRYFIXPAIN

NEWHATECOME

OLDHATEFIGHTNEW

KILLNEW

DARKKILLNEW

NEWNEWHATETRYCOME

MOREHATENEW

BURNMORENEWHATE

OLDHATEFIXPAIN

OLDHATEFIXTRAP

FREE

CONFUSION

WANTKILLOLDHATE

OLDHATENOTHATE

NOTHATE?

NOTHATEIMPOSSIBLE

UNHATE

STAYUNHATE

The thing uncoils around us, moving with seemingly unlikely speed to a posture of waiting.

UNHATEHOMETHERE

STAYUNHATEHOME

We cautiously, the soldiers maintaining their perimeter about fifty meters out, move back to the stair-column with a seemingly curious Skalewyrm following, where the 'Wyrm seems content to coil around a stalactite and wait. Leaving a group of even more nervous soldiers at the bottom to watch it, we made the journey to the surface, carrying Patham's unconscious body, and, a few hours later, arrive at the bottom with two large pallets, freshly refined iron ingots and uncoked coal straight from the mines, which the 'Wyrm eagerly consumes with much grating and crunching.

We, and the remaining soldiers, return to the surface again, where Patham recovers from his unpleasant sleep within a day or to.

Eventually the decision is made to focus on our own problems for the time being, leaving the beast largely to its own devices for the next three months, aside from the occasional smaller "Meal" of hematite and lignite.

After all, no good trying to work with a wounded creature, not one this big. Better to wait until it can move without causing further damage to itself, and we've stabilized our other issues.

[TheBiggerFish]

{It has indeed. I just finished making dinner.}

[UPDOP IMMINENT]

[DO NOT ADJUST YOUR SET]

((*does not adjust set*))

[Amperzand]

{*Encounters unexpected problems within Reality*}

[TheBiggerFish]

{*Encounters unexpected problems within Reality*}

((Reality sucks.  Stilldop todop?))

[Amperzand]

[EDITDOP COMPLETE]

[Amperzand]

{Right, so that's that until I'm back. I'm sorry about the railroading, but I'd rather both have direct supervision over taming attempts and give you guys some time to journal and project in.}

{You have three months to use before I get back. Don't start any fights with anything, including one another, keep to things you're really sure I won't object to with your major projects, because I will make you retcon any major oversteps, and do try to play smart.}

Noncombat Turns are known as/equivalent to Months, and allow for one major project and a nigh-unlimited amount of RP each time. If you work together, you'll get more done, but it's harder than you might think to do anything big and/or complex within a single month, so keep it in mind. Hache gets the equivalent of two or three players' action-effectiveness, to keep things even. He is directly more powerful than you are, and for reasons of balance can accomplish more in a shorter amount of time. Zombieminionhandwave; GO!

If you don't want other factions' players to see your actions, put them in a labeled spoiler, but do have at least some storyfluff outside of every spoiler.

[TheBiggerFish]

Well then.  Let's fix my staff.
I start rebuilding my staff, with an eye to safely defusing necromantic corruption, in addition to other combat abilities.

[Dustan Hache]

*meanwhile, to the northeast, the necromancer would be gathering a force of undead fauna and creatures in preparation for conquest, knowing that he cannot stand up to both the dwarves and the Far East if things continue this way, and would start to conquor towns and goblin camps close to his home, which is slowly beiginning to turn into a proper tower, the living working alongside the undead, or becoming undead.*

[endlessblaze]

-blaze lies in the grass, breathing in the fresh air-
"Ahhh.....I'm not much of a nature person, but even I have to enjoy this after so long underground."

"Urk- speak for yourself, the sun is nauseating, I thimk I'm going to be-(gag) ugh..."
-the dwarf runs off to a nearby tree to vomit-

"Yes, well while your getting over your cave adaptation I'm going to read"

[TheBiggerFish]

((What, no "Team up with the people who blasted your army to bits to defeat That Other Guy"?))

[TheBiggerFish]

I wander up for a moment, because human interaction is a nice way to stay sane.
"Blargh.  I never was a particularly outside person anyway.  Dwarven physiology just makes that worse.  Eh."
"Huh, there appears to be a trade caravan coming in."
"Wonder if they have Nether Cap."

I put in a request to get some Nether Cap, should there be any.
((I am going to assume there is, in fact, Nether Cap.))


==The Lab==
==Data Log: Spark==
Capacity increases in accordance with predicted gem allocation.
Sensory optimization algorithms have resulted in a 100% increase in input over a weekly period, and growth is expected to continue apace for a total projected 4x increase over the month.

[Dustan Hache]

((What, no "Team up with the people who blasted your army to bits to defeat That Other Guy"?))

(one, he is *spoilers go here later when i can format* and two, he deems the dwarves to be a worse threat at the moment, being closer to him than the Far East.

His plan is to build a sizable army and attack the dorfs to capture the masterminds behind the spell, and then with all the local mages available, march on the far east. On that note, he is still quite evil for the moment and definitely does not care if all the dorfs die. Heck, it is implied that villages that resist are slain and turned into undead draftees. If that is not dark and evil enough, nothing is.)

[TheBiggerFish]

((What, no "Team up with the people who blasted your army to bits to defeat That Other Guy"?))

(one, he is *spoilers go here later when i can format* and two, he deems the dwarves to be a worse threat at the moment, being closer to him than the Far East.

His plan is to build a sizable army and attack the dorfs to capture the masterminds behind the spell, and then with all the local mages available, march on the far east. On that note, he is still quite evil for the moment and definitely does not care if all the dorfs die. Heck, it is implied that villages that resist are slain and turned into undead draftees. If that is not dark and evil enough, nothing is.)

((Hmph.  Well, thanks for telling me your plans.))
"Dammit.  We need sizeable zombie defenses up, stat.  The necro's gonna march on us before going to Out East."
On that note, I quickly move to produce antipersonnel defenses.

[Dustan Hache]

((What, no "Team up with the people who blasted your army to bits to defeat That Other Guy"?))

(one, he is *spoilers go here later when i can format* and two, he deems the dwarves to be a worse threat at the moment, being closer to him than the Far East.

His plan is to build a sizable army and attack the dorfs to capture the masterminds behind the spell, and then with all the local mages available, march on the far east. On that note, he is still quite evil for the moment and definitely does not care if all the dorfs die. Heck, it is implied that villages that resist are slain and turned into undead draftees. If that is not dark and evil enough, nothing is.)

((Hmph.  Well, thanks for telling me your plans.))
"Dammit.  We need sizeable zombie defenses up, stat.  The necro's gonna march on us before going to Out East."
On that note, I quickly move to produce antipersonnel defenses.

(Oh come on! At least implement it in a way that implies it was news from the caravan!)