"Just a simple cargo check. Where are you going with this?"
Tell my guys to check the truck.
"This is highly irregular, I'll have to notify my superiors of this."The soldiers agilely clamber down and move to the back of the truck with one of the occupants of the vehicle. They enter and investigate, reporting that the truck appears to be some sort of mobile test rig or coordination room of some kind. It is odd, but not unheard of for companies to have their own mobile test rigs for quality control, especially those that require specialized facilities or have trade secrets to hide, which in both cases, tend to denote members of the Vestige conglomerate.
"Anything in particular you want us to check, sir?""... well. Let's get this thing done with."
Flip a coin, press skip on the box's terminal if heads, pick a random network on tails.
((Coin landed on tails. Random.org selected SOTERIOLOGIST for you.))
The screen goes black and an electrical current surges through your body, you convulse, spasming in place as the muscles in your hand tense up and refuse to release the tablet. The screen begins to crack around the edges, your reflection in it desynchronizing and shifting further with each fracture. Soon, in the reflection, you see not yourself but rather your decayed corpse grinning back at you.
The tablet breaks, shattering into pieces as the current finally stops, returning to you the control of your body. Stand before you, is a man of appearance reminiscent to that of a porcelain doll. He wears a business suit messily with the coat resembling a black cloak more than anything else. Slashing forth with a scythe, he conjures pale text before vanishing.
I am the scythe that kills a newborn before its parents eyes, the atrocities that silence the screams of the innocent, and the noose upon which sinners hang.
I am the raven that devours the dead, the pox that fells the raven, and the salted bomb that brings an end to them all.
I slay the young, I slay the old; the rich, the poor. None too wretched, none too fortunate - all are my rightful prey.
I stand here before your sorry ass today, so that some punk bitch with a 9 mm can't cap it.
Not easily, at any rate.
((You are now able to summon a hallucination of the grimoire found in the OP and cast spells from it.))((Tradecraft Gained: Memento Mori))Miaoko closed the flight system workshop's blast doors, grabbing some of the scrap metal and with the help of the arms, trying to make it somewhat of a gimbal, full 360 movement side to side. And two things that he could grip to make it easier to turn. "Shit, they're coming. Hold on."
Door shut.
Using the remains of a desk chair, several feet of steel tubing and discarded armor of indeterminate thickness you manage to make something roughly resembling a twisted cross between a decidedly unsafe merry-go-round and a lightly-armored wedding cake. It consists of the bottom half of a swivel chair with a small platform mounted above it, in the center of the platform is a cage of metal for a thruster to be mounted onto. Now, since being really anywhere near the backside of a thruster isn't the brightest idea, the front of the cage has a set of railings that allow cage rotation, though it requires the operator to stand facing it and side step around the front, dragging the entire cage around with them. Not remotely safe at all if you intend to ride it. But there aren't too many options considering what you wanted.
Whilst you were busy doing all of this, your coworker just randomly convulses for a bit. Helpful.
"Urraagh. Anyone remember what happened? I sure don't."
Ugh... I had to pick an option... what was it... didn't know what was in the box... oh yeah, that cat guy. Slobenger? Schroider? Whatever the one that sound like the cat in the box guy, that was it. Anyway, didn't want to put fingerprints on those rifles; hopefully there weren't any already.
Select SCHROEDINBUG. Don't take a rifle; that's bad news. Just where are we, anyway? Ask the dude if required. Maybe that strange thing in my pocket has a clue.
"The Drunken Engineer Bar, 54 Chest Nut Avenue. 1st 'Floor'."Floor probably wasn't the best term to use, but as is common with language, appropriate usage was not much of a consideration. The first floor consisted of the section of the colony starting from the bottom of the helix and spiraling up all the way until a bird's eye view would make it appear as a circle, which considering the size of the region covered by that definition, is inexact to the point of uselessness.
Pale text erupts forth. Some before your eyes,
others in your mind. The text that is more, comprehensible reads:
Finally lucid now, are you?
Tell me, do you like fire and explosions?
((You are now able to summon a hallucination of the grimoire found in the OP and cast spells from it.))((Tradecraft Gained: Arrow of Simurgh))"More information would be good. I'm sure the autocannon is strong enough to tear through them, but do they have any maneuvering weaknesses? Inability or trouble turning, the sort of thing I could exploit?" Beirus replies to Jus, his gaze coninually flicking through the evasion options presented to him.
Take any evasion option that allows me to still have a line of fire on at least one System League frame. Continue firing autocannon while evading. If one of them closes to Melee range, RELEASE THE KRAKEN ARMS!
Hostiles Identified.
They are 01-PUPPET/AF units, lightweight frames designed for high-speed combat. Minimalistic design, lacking many of the systems most frames have.
No hydraulics, no actuators, they move using high-output thrusters embedded over their entire frame. Armor is as light as possible, any thinner and
infantry weapons would have been able to destroy them.
No maneuvering weaknesses. At least, not as long as they remain airborne. With enough obstacles however, they run the risk of crashing.
Hard to pilot, even harder to automate. And these are indeed automated. They run the risk of overturning when trying to aim, or just crashing and burning.
Their weapons are 19-MUSKETEER/SR sniper rifles, all of them are out of ammo - those weapons are single shot Hail Marys.
They double as swords though, and if one of those PUPPET frames hits a core with them at the speed they can move, the pilot is as good as dead.
If they go for a stab, they'll have trouble unlodging their weapon after hitting, or if they miss, they'll probably crash.
If they go for a slash, they might knock the MUSKETEER out of their own hands, or, they'll overswing completely.
Basically, for them to be using that weapon is suicidal.
[MDEF vs. UTAR: 1 vs. 1] Wow, just wow. You dodge, barely. The sniper round ripping through the air just to your right and plowing into the pavement.
[MDEF vs. UTAR: 0 vs. 2] [MDEF vs. UTAR: 0 vs. 1] [MDEF vs. UTAR: 0 vs. 0] The rest of your squad aren't so lucky. Two of the rounds crash straight into their targets, slamming them backwards amidst a spray of ablated armor and heated cursing. The final round just plain misses and slams into the side of a building,
"Shit! We're all gonna die if we don't get into cover!" Instead of returning fire, your squadmate in the undamaged frame proceeds to charge straight into the damaged building, crashing through the already crumbling wall. They continue running into the building, spinning around in the process to try and cover everyone else with their chaingun.
[UTAR vs. MDEF: 3 vs. 4] Despite your best efforts towards the contrary, your target remains unscathed having suddenly reversed its direction entirely, performing a horizontal dash at immense speeds.
[UTAR vs. MDEF: 4 vs. 5] [UTAR vs. MDEF: 2 vs. 5] Your other two squadmates also fail to enact their vengeance, the PUPPET frames having scattered to avoid their shots.
The frame you targeted shifts its trajectory, flying in an arcing trajectory towards your position whilst the other three enter steep dives, one of them apparently intent on stabbing the LUPUS in the building to death through the entirety of said building. As time halts again, you notice the something falling off of the one targeting you.
It's purging its cooling systems and armor to dump excess heat and speed up.
It's going to overheat. It's thrusters are going to melt to slag.
Assuming it doesn't crash and burn before then.
Try not to be in the crash, or at least keep your frame's arms in the way.
Ao Shi
"Sote? Mal? What? You gotta fill me in about what the hell is going on. Why your image was on that ancient tablet? Also, what's your name?"
"I appreciate if you can check the backup generator. Those soldiers outside probably will make their plans clear soon enough."
In other words, use Bio Scan.
Then Ao turns his attention to guys below.
"Fix it properly! No jury rigging anything!" I'm not risking electronics.
She doesn't move at all before replying
"Colleagues of mine. Most people just call me Red, and that was my image because I sent you the tablet before I came here. Oh and your backup generator has cancer. I really wouldn't recommend going down there, unless you like dying from cosmic radiation.
It's a bubble of twisted reality that can grow and multiply by draining electricity. Casting a spell inside its boundary should be able to pop it really easily, but, it can teleport and it has a really unpredictable attack pattern so you probably won't want to try.
You can thank the aliens for it."Aliens? What aliens?
Speaking of ways to ruin your day, whoever's outside has started shouting again
"Agh, damnit, okay fine, have it your way. We're going to break down your wall. Please clear the way, so that you don't get manslaughtered by our frame."Left arm is just over halfway done in terms of actuator installation, at this rate, you might have to just resort to kicking everything to death with a paraplegic frame.
"Great. Seeing as that machine is probably our only hope of seeing another day, can you guys get to installing the electricity, hydraulics, and movement core? Don't rush, I want this done properly." Derek says to the other engineers with him. Moving to the weird terminal, Derek looks at the list of available networks.
"On it sir. How do we power this thing though?"About 60% or so of the electrical systems get installed but they still don't have any sort of power supply so to speak of. Hydraulics and movement core installation has yet to begin. During this, you hear some sort of muffled discussion take place outside, mostly drowned out by the whirring of the chamber arms and background noise, after a while the voices are gone, replaced by disquieting silence.
Grimoire protocols activated
Available networks are:
SOTERIOLOGIST
RED_QUEEN
JUS_AD_BELLUM
SMOTHERED_MATE
MALEBRANCHE
TZINACAN
DECOHERENT
SCHROEDINBUG
Enter a network name, or press ENTER to skip
"No idea. What the hell am I doing here? I don't even drink.
What is this in my pocket? Check out the little box thing.
The matchbox's insignia, a minimalistic eye with a faint smoke pattern around it, doesn't really match any brand you know of. Opening it, you find that there are 19 safety matches, seemingly of mundane construction with no particularly notable characteristics.
Author
Topic: Perplexicon - Down the Foxhole - Raining Mecha (Read 179727 times)