James trembles for a moment. Then he stares at the wolf very, very, intently...
Oi mate, what's wrong with you?
Enough of this.
"DIE..."
James drives his(non-bound) fire axe through the last wolf's head. If attacked, he attempts to dodge.
[LTAR vs. MDEF: -1 vs. 0] Axe Attack.
You swing at the wolf but a jolt of pain sends you staggering forwards, your axe cleaving into its body but failing to deal a mortal blow, which, considering that it rapidly regenerates, is far from ideal.
[MDEF vs. LTAR: 4 vs. 4] Enemy Attack.
[LTAR vs. MDEF: 3 vs. 0] Axe Attack.
Seeing its chance it lunges at you again, a little pain might have stopped you the first time, but it's not going to stop you again. First, you leap back, kicking off the ground with supernatural agility, keeping you out of its reach. You quickly lean forwards as soon as you land, driving your legs against the floor in dash forwards as the wolf tries to follow up with a second lunge, its motion serving only to drive its head into your readied axe.
Your short charge sends you straight through the wolf, its bisected body blowing apart from a seemingly far greater impact, fragments clattering to the ground.
Sote flickers into view, an illusionary hand to your side, examining your wound, regarding it with a concerned expression that while not disingenuous, is evidently artificial, an acknowledgement more than any sort of real worry.
Feeling alright? There should be first aid kits in the factory,
my scans can guide you to the nearest one if that is your wish.
Before the Ladlemonger enters the APC, he turns back to the soldiers and bows slightly.
"May the Ladle light up guide your path with its gross incandescence."
Get in the APC. Pedal to the metal. Find my soon-to-be-companion, so that we may engage in jolly cooperation. If I find him and he is getting attacked, call upon the power of Caladlebolg and destroy his enemies. If using spells at the same time as attacking physically is a thing, throw some '12 ixc' into the mix.
The engine roars. You floor the accelerator, and flick the windshield wipers to as high as they can go. A small blessing that all cars have them, even in an underground colony, if not because no-one could be bothered designing models without them, then because car washes window cleaner still give them some token use. Indeed, these are as good as those you'd find on other planets where storms are actually a concern for drivers, that is to say, they are of negligible use. For whatever arcane specifications they designed were for sadly did not list "murderous underground storm" amongst the conditions they were meant to handle. A futile smear of motion on a blur of rain.
The wind roars. Two blocks in and you see the black clouds, roiling and shrinking, like ink in water played in reverse. Flashes of lightning piercing the congealing darkness. Soon you are three blocks in
The thunder roars. You see the building above which the clouds gather, and something that is tearing apart its edifice, you can't see too clearly. Clearly this is your stop. You brake and swerve, sending your van careening into a drift as you swing open the door. An icy roc, like the one on that brochure rakes its claws against a building, explosions blasting apart a widening hole in the reception. You swing your legs out, striking your right heel against the van's side as if performing an axe kick, and then you run. Your run along the side of your van, mid-drift, Caladlebolg manifesting in your hand as you leap off.
[COMP: 9/8] Spell.
[UTAR vs. MDEF: 5 vs. 3] Bound Weapon Attack. Spell Attack.
[MDEF vs. LTAR: 4 vs. 7] Enemy Attack.
[TRAN: 6/9] Enemy Resist.
As you swing, so too does the roc. It's smaller than the one in the brochure, yet up close now, it's still far too large. Sickle like talons swing towards you, wreathed in, and trailing arcs of octarine energy. Your left foot hits the ground, you relax the joints, letting your leg flex with the motion. Your right foot touches the ground, you kick off into a sideways leap, swinging Caladlebolg.
Your armor bubbles like tar, a machine-gun spray of oily globs bursting forth. So you see the corrosion roil forth from your greatladle. You see the rotted flesh that bubbles from your spell bolts. You see the familiar green sparks. And then, you see octarine. A great octarine arc, and the claws that they arc upon.
Pain. Burning pain. Cutting pain. Worse, far worse than anything you've felt. The chaingun had the courtesy to finish you off. This did not. You manage to lessen the impact a bit, and at the very least reduced a killing blow to a likely mortal wound. Perhaps you wish you hadn't.
You skid along the road, blood mixing with rain. The choking smell of ozone mixes with the sickly sweet scent of your own burnt flesh.
If you were to stop time once more, if you were to look at yourself, you would see a broken body. Fractured and cloven bones, charred and missing skin, and lichtenberg figures carved around the flesh that exploded apart. You don't need to however, for you can already know that death approaches.
At least you brought them time.
At least, this grave shall be for two. The corrosion had found its mark, blighting the ice and decaying the bone. The bolts too had hit, and as you skidded along the ground, you could see that a great green spark in the shape of a hand reaching out of the roc, bending backwards into itself and discharging with a flash.
[MDEF vs. LTAR: 3 vs. 1] Enemy Attack.
Its corpse falls, crashing down upon you, its final flap seeking as to secure its vengeance. You may not be alive for much longer, but there is still time, however little. It shall not deny you that.
Adrenaline pumping, pain fading, you throw yourself forwards, passing under as it crashes behind you. Good riddance.
You try to crawl, try to fight the worsening pain, to focus your fading consciousness, but you can't. In your attempts to crawl, you bolt upright into a jog. As you try to fight the pain, you find that there is no pain. You don't feel tired. You feel alert, focused, ready.
You feel the rain on your skin, your missing skin. You look down.
You've healed. You healed as soon as the roc perished, and only now did you notice. Perhaps "heal" is not the best term. Were you to go to your GP, they would not say that you were healed, actually they'd just run away screaming. For though you are not dead, you aren't quite alive either. Around your wounds the flesh rotted, leaking a petroleum-like fluid that now pools in your wounds and replaces the missing skin. In the tiny hole left in your chest, just in the gap between mended ribs, you can see your heart, black and shriveled now, yet beating steadily.
"What's this? From first glance it looks upgraded, but in reality it is downgrade? Damn... I drew short stick again. Unless there's something else. Hmm..."
Systems check, RTFM. What's new software-wise? Anything about the gun?
Is the Alcubierre Drive useable within city scale? How precise it is? Preparations needed? Danger radius for humans not intented for transport? Cooldown?
Check with Red if that undanger teleport works with LATRANS. If it does, then use it to get right back to the coke monster plaza at any spot that doesn't instantly provoke hostile attention or damage infrastructure. Otherwise use the Alcubierre Drive from location where it doesn't ruin everything, of course assuming it can be used precisely enough. If not... well, I have to take the long route.
The systems are secure although several software and hardware notifications about new additions and non-standard gear. The weapon appears to be a almost turret like weapon mounted on the forearm that can pivot in multiple directions it also has it's own cameras and sensors allowing for it to pick out small targets easier.
You read the on-system manual on Alcubierre jumping which brings your attention to a warning that the particle sweep has been disabled, which while possibly sounding perfectly reasonable to a buffoon who doesn't work on frames, is the sort of message that sends alarm bells ringing in your head. Not only should that not be disabled, disabling it shouldn't even be an option, there should be numerous mechanical interlocks specifically built into the drive to stop that from ever occurring, because otherwise whatever is in front of the frame at the end of a jump is not going to be there anymore, blasted apart with a spray of high-energy particles.
Looking at the software you see further modifications with the capacitor's capacity having been halved and the navigation software is three version numbers ahead of the latest that you have previously seen. The software system is described as granting "rapid short range movement through dense terrain by chained warp envelope manipulations with additional assault field". You also manage to find the drive specs.
Type: Nonlinear Assault Drive model 37-dA
Envelope Buffer: 30 mm
Navigational Accuracy: +- 0.0001 %
Effective Velocity: 35c
Current Charge: 49.91/50.00 MC
Charge Rate: 0.56 MC/minute
Checking the UI, you see that you are able to plan a series of jumps in rapid-succession to reach locations you lack a direct line of sight to. Unfortunately, that also entails a murderous blast of radiation being released by every single jump, proportional to jump distance. Seems that so long as you have enough charge, you can use it without any delay between jumps.
Seeing as the jumps involve colossal quantities of collateral damage, you just fly out out the hanger, using the frame's thrusters. Well, it's certainly refreshing being able to use what you once repaired, even with the realization that you will likely have to repair whatever damage it sustains.
Returning to coke demon plaza, you find that you can't see a damn thing. It's like rave in there, except with flashbangs instead of strobelights. You might honestly be better off with the distorted sensory feeds seeing as it's at least. There's just this mass of light and sound charging forth, a LUPUS frame spraying it with chaingun fire in an attempt to keep it at bay.
The spearman is probably somewhere in there, seeing as there are a few corpses on the ground, though for all you know they might have just died from massive epileptic fits or something. The rest of the soldiers are behind the frame, making a fighting retreat as they fire grenades in, the vague direction of the demon's post code.
Stay out of the spider's reach. Shoot it with my ALCYONE and bound weapon. Keep an eye on that roc. If it manages to get far enough into the building that I have a clear shot that won't miss, blast it with a Plasma Gout. Otherwise, try to continue further into the building. Watch out for any more lightning spiders or threats like that.
You discharge two ALCYONE rounds and all four barrels of your bound weapon into the spider, the bullets ineffectually passing through it and putting several holes in the elevator. Well, that's going to be an issue.
Making a turn and running further into the building, parallel to the street, the roc leaves your line of sight, as does the spider. There are no spotters nor any suspiciously sparking electronics in your path, however you do skirt past a symbol on the ground, one that you give wide berth. Up ahead, inscribed upon a wall is another one.
The roc's cacophany has ceased. Now, you hear only the storm and your own footsteps once more.
Blue is Whitmore.
Green is O'Greenahan.
Purple are spotters.
White is the dead roc.
Red is the lightning spider.
Orange are the markings.
"Better then standing out here until something kills us, lets go."
See if we can go around the back.
Ditto
You slowly make your way around towards the rear side of the building until you run out of carpark, and stop at a slightly oblique angle. The building behind is a large warehouse with a connection to the main building through a covered walkway. Several guards with shotguns and rifles are patrolling the grounds, from here, you can see four with rifles and three with shotguns.
Author
Topic: Perplexicon - Down the Foxhole - Raining Mecha (Read 179067 times)