To my comrade,"That'd be awfully helpful. I don't particularly care, as long as it isn't another MUSKETEER, but maybe a shotgun? Don't worry about ammo, I'm happy to get rid of the MUSKETEER to cover it."
Once Laura contacts me, head back to our garage. On the way, give her a rundown of the situation,"Yeah, I've got a pair of drones you'll want to take a look at. Pre-Fall tech, but brand new, made by an AI. Good missiles on 'em, and they've got some kind of fire magic. Dunno what else they've got, but they danced a missile right around my ECM field, somehow. I don't want their creepy AI brains anywhere near my frame, though; if those are intact, we sell 'em to Intel, contribute a bit to the war effort. My frame took a hit in the fight, but I want these two stripped down before you worry about repairs."
After I've delivered my catch, tell Laura to have fun and get out of the frame to try some more magic. Cast "27", "31", "4a", and "66".
"No problem it would be the least I could do, thanks for the help!"He runs inside his tent gleefully having pulled quite a magnificent haul.
You head over to your 'garage' although it is more of a tent next to a frame support scaffold, which is the large collection of concrete blocks and cranes to allow service to all parts of the frame with ease. Laura steps out of the tent looking gleefully at the chrome skinned drones, hair barely contained underneath a yellow pillbox hat which is a slightly, but noticeably different yellow to her coveralls.
"Oooh... pretty! I'm going to have some fun with these then I'll bang out all the problems in your ol' bucked of a bot."She quickly gets to work viciously slicing through joints with a circular saw with a somewhat worrying amount of gleeful enthusiasm.
You get out of your frame through the hatch and hop onto one of the gantries of the frame scaffold using a metal bucket on one of the cranes to get down to the ground. Free of your un-air-conditioned metal box you begin practicing magic.
[COMP: 4] Spell, 27
[COMP: 2/1] Spell, 31
[COMP: 1/1] Spell, 4a
[COMP: 2/1] Spell, 66
Your first spell fizzles. The next conjures the shimmering visage of a cage, the next a goat, the last, a scythe. Well, guess if this whole "saving humanity from ravenous abominations" doesn't work out too hot, you could always become a farmer.
Well, let's jet and pulse fire I suppose. Like, kind of like a tackle, but an assalt. Random-walky stuff. Avoid getting into the thick of it, unless I already am, in which case, random-walky out of the immediate thick.
Thrusters flaring, you drunkenly dash in the vague direction of "anywhere but this fucking hellhole". It works decently well.
[LTAR vs. SDEF: AUTOSUCCESS] Opening fire on Clockwork Automaton
Your flash of light catches one of the automata, a clockwork soldier wielding a shifting slick black scythe. In that instant, it becomes salt and scatters in the wind. Its fellows immediately turn on you, for to take one of their comrades is punishable by brutal unflinching murder. Two of them bear smart cannons, which true to their names take the form of hand-held cannons with barrels covered by small shields. The remaining one wields another autoscythe with a blade of flowing vegetal tendrils, its lively green glow sprouting from a floral arrangement of stone. Their formation remains quite loose, enough to make it hard to catch all of them in a single shot.
In addition to the 3 clockworks, there of course the matter of that single larger more brutal looking creature. It grips its sword tightly as it chases you, a haze of heat emanating from its spine-mounted generators.
They're... learning? Their paths are adapting to go where you're heading overall rather than blindly chasing your erratic dashes, and more concerningly, they're darting into your range as you dash, as if they know you can't dash and fire at the same time.
It also doesn't help that the vulture is keeping pace, still frustratingly out of range.
As time halts, you see the four earth-bound constructs make their move. One of them is going to fire a beam, another a series of shots, and then all of them, are going to close the gap. There is also nice little target zones shadowing your simulated movements, aiming to put some kind of delightfully murderous discharge insde your cockpit.
((If you do target any, please do specify which ones and how much of your LTAR you wish to assign to each.))
"This new ability is going to be extremely useful, Jus."
The arm armor will go to Beirus, unless he doesn't want it. Use Necrotic Cache - a battery for the SOL:18I and... perhaps try to enhance the grenade bundle with it. If I can't enhance the 'nades, how about Caladlebolg? If not, just summon a clip for whatever Beirus wants.
"Shall we go?"
The Ladlemonger is ready to ineffectually fight the boss. If we do head to the boss this turn, use Eq. Check once we have it in sight.
You conjure up a battery for the SOL:18I which causes the blade to turn a sickly green with black embers flaking off it. Enhancement seems to be out of its purview but it does create two crystal-clear spheres of what appears to be glass that contain a sticky black liquid.
The battery unit operates different to the standard SOL:18I blade. Even deploying the blade
will gradually drain the battery. The blade in question is entropic in nature, like the corrosion waves
of your Caladlebolg and will degrade non-magical materials, and reduce flesh to petroleum.
Instead of a plasma gout, it may deplete its entire battery to intensify its blade and, for a brief moment
render its wielder unable to die (though you will be maimed and harmed as normal). It will then attempt
to heal you by altering you into a necrotic entity using the remaining power and, hopefully, your now
deceased foe's life-force. The more charge you use it with, the "safer" it is.
The spheres are for your grenade bundle. Adding them to it will imbue the explosions with intense
entropic qualities and harvest the life force of anything killed by it to heal you. Again by altering
you and filling in your wounds.
Activity spike detected.
The security system has manifested.
I am detecting anomalies surrounding those weapons and corresponding
anomalies around the creation site. Imagine a big angry cloud.
Now imagine a big angry cloud making copies of weapons so it can shoot you
and eat you.
That's probably what it looks like.
You move to the door into the final chamber, it slides open creaking with the sound of rusted bearings. Behind it is a stairway that leads up for several laborious flights littered once again with corpses frozen in ice. The top of the stairs opens straight into the middle of a flat rooftop, well once flat. The rooftop is covered in ice and drifts of snow in the ice are dozens of different weapons all facing point or muzzle outward. At the edge of the area is a large mound with part of a PUPPET protruding from it. At 500 meters in all directions is a massive whirling orb of ice and black thunder clouds. Directly above you is a large glowing sphere connected by various heavy duty cables to 8 massive monoliths of concrete, likely this is the power source being all glowy and such. The monoliths are oddly shaped with large oblong pieces cut out or added to their 'core' rectangular shape looking quite postmodern. Oddly there is nobody else here, other than the water watchers that leer at you as usual.
James Heign:
"Ah well. I guess I'll hang with you guys for the moment then. I'm fairly sure what I'm looking for is somewhere in this facility anyway."
Onwards ho!
You follow the squad as they head inward past the mulched corpse of the crab monster you head into the labyrinthine corridors of machines and storage that make up the main floor. Before going far you are quickly confronted with the bodies of NEE soldiers, comrades of the ones from earlier maybe? They have been butchered to pieces, now more resembling a tomato soup than chunky salsa to make a food comparison. Their equipment has been, shattered. their guns have just been completely pulverized with seemingly supernatural force.
Your allies glance at them. One or two nod, but no words are spoken.
You see cracks in the floor from some sort of impact and long scratch marks gouged into the concrete leading away and around the corner.
"Gimme just a sec. I may have a way to bust into that floor." Beirus replies as he scrounges through the gathered equipment for something.
Accept the arm armor. Reload plasma sword. Get an NEE headset from the equipment and call in that artillery strike they promised me to open up that bunker and hopefully clear out some of the security.
"This is Captain Beirus O'Greenahan. I'm in the center of the anomaly, but the top floor of the skyscraper is armored and sealed. I'll need that artillery strike to crack it open like an oyster. And load up at least two more salvos. I don't really know what's on that floor and I've got a dragon outside that wants to eat me, or brainwash me or something if I make it out of here. Called itself IV. Also, did my team make it back? And did I win any of my bets yet?"
Considering the door just opened and there wasn't anyone in there I'll assume you decide not to blow your entry and likely selves to kingdom come. Your usual operator replies;
"Understood we have a LUPUS Ranger in support fully loaded and ready to assist. Dragon? Well that is a new way we are fucked..." she pauses and sighs.
"Shouldn't expect any less really, your team is drying off in the barracks now, you are currently up in the pool by 521 credits if you survive whatever you are doing you will get 1344 credits and the steak dinner I promised you. So please try and make it back alive. Firing on coordinates now."[UTAR vs. SDEF: AUTOFAILURE] Artillery Strike
Time stops and your vision zooms out, viewing the wind wall and all its surroundings from the outside. A series of lines arc out towards the tower from an origin somewhere in the distance. As you shift the lines, you soon find that there's no way you can get the shot to land. The wind's too damn strong. Strong enough to strip away unprotected flesh. To buffet APCs. And, as you find now, to send your shots off-course. There's no really adjusting for it either, the projected behavior alters in accordance to your own adjustments, not unlike what enemies do, ensuring that the shells never find your mark.
Time resumes, and before the first round leaves the barrel, you already know they will fail to reach their target.
"Time to buy some precious moments"
Look around for some wire, or use my bound multitool thingamabob to rip something out of the side of the fire escape that I can make a loop out of.
Jam it into the (underneath) bottom of the fire-escape stairs and channel "9" into it. Cut and bend it up to cover the way down and rip out the antenna.
IF there is somewhere to hide definitely do so, with my gun at the ready and wait and see, otherwise just find a position where I can't easily be shot by anyone who wants to come down the stairs if I failed.
What do my surroundings look like in more detail? Any detritus I might be able to use? Alternate paths or just forward/down just one more floor? Is the rune line heading into L-3 or heading down the escape to L-4 (if there is a L-4 at all)
Ideally I'd like a thin(ish) wall on either side of the rune lined corridor that I might be able to tear down with some transformative magic, or my bound tool. Maybe I can simply bypass this one.
(To Decon)
"Well, this looks like one of the building or OH&S violations to me. Think it's an alarm that brings something nasty, or something in and of itself a danger?"
Once you clarify your word I will post a mini-update to do this correctly
"Really now? My Queenie is very generous. This humble servant gladly accepts your gift."
Try connecting the arm guards to my chest armor if compatible connectors are found.
c8 & ff, COMP evenly distributed.
Let's find quiet way inside this distillery.
You connect them together and several lights on both activate, glowing a faint blue. You see a faint rippling in the air around your arms and torso now.
[COMP: 5/0] Spell, c8
[COMP: 9/5] Spell, ff
You create two shimmering images. The first one is a screwdriver. The second one is a shifting humanoid with hazy features and proportions that shift and mutate before it dissipates.
You do after some walking around find an open window into a darkened room, however it is most of the way up a sheer brick wall and while you are more agile than before you still doubt you could wall run 15 meters and then leap into a half open window.
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Topic: Perplexicon - Down the Foxhole - Raining Mecha (Read 177306 times)