Ao Shi
Red: "Heh. Yeah, now doesn't seem to be so good time. Some other time then. So, it seems you have given me something else in addition of magic. Thanks for that, I suppose fighting against Big Bad Boss requires more than some magic. But what exactly you gave? I need all information you can give me so I can be useful for you. Heh, time to unleash the couch strategist!"
"Talking about useful, a wax chain? Is that all the magic is good for? Conjuring random items?"
"I take you don't have any idea where those... targeters could be?"
Keep hiding. More magic: 3d a5
"Well I can scan things for you and you can react extra fast, so there is that. Oh and you can pilot frames and kill people more easily.
You would be surprised how conjuring a wall of fish can save your life, I saw someone do it, the smell was ghastly though. Well the wax chain is just the start, of a very mean leaning curve, you can eventually become very potent on the battlefield. 'Conjuring random items' as you put it is only part of it.
As for the transmitters, other than telling you if you find one, not really. They're old and difficult to interface with, so finding them is a pain. Look for old undisturbed places or new disturbed places. stupid useless incompatible software bullshit"[COMP: 0] Oh dear. Your spell apparently transmutes the caster's head into a wax mace. Turns out you kinda need your head and all the stuff inside it.
YOU DIEDYou pop back into existence, disoriented and missing all your clothing save for your underwear. Hopefully you're actually wearing underwear. You're in, what appears to be a basement somewhere. Scattered around the barren floor are an old mattress, a first aid kit, some old clothes, several cans of food, and a piece of plywood.
"Oh are you kidding me? There's no good places a two minutes ago but I can revive you right here? Your spell killed you, you're on the Fourth Floor now."Prior to the war, this floor housed various research facilities along with the housing, infrastructure and secure storage required to support them. Now, this is the front line. Where the System League throws forces against your own, hoping to grind them away to dust. Oddly you don't really hear anything. The gunfire might just be too muffled, but one would think that you could hear or even feel explosions and frame movements. That doesn't seem to be the case.
"Well since Jus just hehe "'Jus just'"She spends at least half a minute messing with pronunciation before remembering what she was doing.
"Oh right, you get this for being good at talking and things,"she stops and a small pinprick of red light goes from her finger to the palm of your hand.
"This isn't much, but we need to make sure what you did back at the hangar wasn't a fluke. There will be much more once you've proven that."((You have 1 free external statpoint to allocate! Further speech-based successes will result in a much higher bonus.))There's something else in you mind though, something new. It's, more abstract, closer to an idea, than anything else, and when you focus on it, something appears in your hand. It's a plasma torch, similar in general appearance to your usual one. Except in this case, it seems to lack a cord, and possesses a more knife-like grip with the cutting jet emerging out the front, rather than perpendicular. It doesn't seem as bright, or hot for the matter. You seem to be able to also dismiss it at will, through it automatically vanishes should it leave your hand for too long.
((Bound Weapon - Plasma Torch gained!))Give my teammate one of the pistols and enter the locker room, pistol at the ready. "Is anybody in here?! We're peaceful!" Also see if I can keep anybody from hijacking the rocket chair of doom by disabling it temporarily.
You enter the room pistol ready, your calls for anyone to show themselves are unheeded and you do not hear hurried movements for weapons which is good. You can disconnect any one component from any other to disable it, however most people that are technically adept would be able to reactivate it relatively easily, although they would be delayed. Or you could just try breaking the engine entirely and hope that Malebranche can repair it well enough for your purposes.
Fire on the LANDSKNECHT's core. Try to not die.
You and your squad open fire upon the core. You with the chaingun, they with their anti-Frame rockets. Nothing words are spoken, it is too late for that.
[UTAR vs. SDEF: 6 vs. 16] Try as you might, none of your bullets ever reach the core, each being intercepted with pinpoint precision by linear beams that erupt from the distortion.
[UTAR vs. SDEF: 1, 1, -1 vs. 16] The rockets are destroyed in a similar fashion, never given the chance to detonate. Not even prematurely.
Only a supernatural amount of skill, or something that it cannot destroy, at least not fully, would be able to bypass that by itself.
The pilot has apparently reverted back to maniacal laughter interspersed with mostly incoherent screaming. You think that they mentioned something about "bleeding dolls", "fragile men", and "glass bones". Not particularly useful, and at this point, practically formulaic.
More beams erupt, this time as a shotgun-spray aimed towards you.
"Well everyone, it's been an honor. See you all on the other side."Time freezes. You see the trajectory of each beam and how they outer beams will ricochet. At a certain point, the trajectories go from straight lines to diffuse cones indicating that the anomalies each beam travels through is splitting open to turn it more into a high-energy particle shower from various positions in front of you.
They are scattering the beams. With their present output and that spread, the energy will be insufficient to damage anything past your armor.
However, they will be able to kill the rest of your squad should they hit them.
Derek attempts to reach the frame again.
[SDEF vs. UTAR: 1 vs. 3, 4, 3, 0] Okay, you rolled, incredibly poorly. And your opponents, at least most of them, rolled abnormally well. The RNG does not like you, it seems. You make a mad dash for the cockpit of the LATRANS, twirling your plasma cutter in your hand in an carefully-time movement, hoping to deflect whatever bullets you don't dodge. Though failing to dodge in any appreciable manner, you succeed in striking a few bullets on the side, ensuring that they miss. Unfortunately, the other bullets slam into various parts of your body. Shock sets in, soon to be followed by death. As the pain dissolves into nothingness, you hear Red's voice, still clear amidst your fading thoughts.
"You ain't done yet... I won't let that end all this... I need to find something I can use..."
"there has to be something else... seriously.... ughhhh..."
"The only available revive point is an old gameshow set. The admin unit there is... eccentric... but it is better than death at least... probably... well less dignified but you'll be alive at least."YOU DIEDSlowly, you open your heavy eyelids, reluctantly struggling against your own lethargy. The walls are immaculate and white. The air smells of disinfectant with the faintest hints of citrus. The air-conditioning is set to what is a degree or two below what could be called a comfortable temperature. The reception chairs, pristine though still decidedly bad, are arranged in pairs, with each pair separated by a low tables, wooden veneers likely belying plastic constructions. Upon the tables are magazines dedicated to the usual waiting room pentatheon: Food, People, Cars, Guns and Technology. As is always, the magazine names themselves are not any that you recognize. A clock on the opposite wall, one of those minimalistic analogues in unoffensive monochromes, ticks along steadily.
What a strange dream that was. Perhaps even terrifying.
Yeah. Keep telling yourself that.
Not even you believe those thoughts. You don't have a medical appointment, you aren't sick. You aren't pretending to be. At around this time, you should still be back at the assembly chamber, working. Had it not under attack. Had you not been killed.
((Bound Weapon - Plasma Torch gained!))Keep trying to take down that PUPPET with the autocannon if in control, or presumably the arms if control is lost.
[TRAN: 2] Welp. Possessed again. Not that it changes much since you end up pursuing the PUPPET anyway.
As you sweep around the corner, you see it. It's already covered quite a fair distance, flying away from the facility. It's too damn far for you. You may have been able to run up a building and catch that squad by surprise earlier, but with the speed and altitude of this one, there's no way to catch up. As if realizing this, the possession fades away. By now it's too far for you to even have much of a chance hitting it with your auto-cannon.
You seem to be a fine soldier, when you aren't being used as a meatpuppet.
Good to see.
I've taken the liberty of allocating some more system resources to you.
It isn't much, but more will follow, depending on your performance of course.
((All your stats have been raised by 1! You have 1 free external statpoint, and 1 free internal statpoint to allocate!))Receive pistol. Weep.
Pistol acquired.
Pat on the back acquired.
[WEEPING INTENSIFIES]
"So why are you here, granting people this... magic, I guess? Is it because we're being attacked? Who are you and why are you intervening?"
"99 ed obbh" again while talking.
Correct. Something other than the NEE is intruding. Something foreign to this universe. The last time this happened unchecked, we had The Fall.
We are an organization with vested interests in the outcome of this situation.
It isn't feasible for us to get one of our own out onto the field, so we're relying on providing people like yourself, already on the ground, with the means to handle the matter.
[COMP: 2] ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? Apparently the RNG hates mages. Your lungs are replaced with a cloth handgun.
YOU DIEDYou wake up in the same waiting room as Derek (Pencil Art).
Your revival was intercepted and redirected here.
This used to be a gameshow set. Used to be. It's now a fragment.
Just like what caused the evacuation warning. Just like what sent that UAV after you.
Mostly safe.
((Bound Weapon - Revolver gained!))-snip-
You are currently in your apartment on Floor 2, fresh from your shower. Which, according to the current reports, means that you are sandwiched between four layers of incredibly unpleasant shit. Floor 4, which already was quite fucked from being the frontlines and all, has somehow gotten worse, with the two sides entrenching themselves because they're too busy being attacked by unidentified units, and caught in the crossfire of unidentified units, to actually attack one another. Floor 3 experienced some skirmishes, and a giant fucking tempest is running amok, despite it having no damned place in an underground colony.
Something is attacking Floor 1, they aren't really sure what it is because apparently all the witnesses are either too traumatized or too dead to give any details. Mostly just dead. Floor 0 meanwhile seems to have opened a gateway to hell and unleashed a horde of demons who proceeded to relocate half the facilities while running around murdering each other, leaving the workers terrified and nonplussed.
When the most positive news you hear is "Oh hey! We accidentally opened a portal
TO FUCKING HELL!", it is probably safe to assume that you are either about to have a very long day, or a very short life. If somehow, you and your building survive this in one piece, you could stand to gain a small fortune from how much your residence will be worth.
Of more immediate concern is the fact that someone seems to have broken into the aforementioned residence, stolen nothing, and instead left what appears to be some sort of boxy computer on your table. Kids these days.
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
Author
Topic: Perplexicon - Down the Foxhole - Raining Mecha (Read 179883 times)