"AAAGH. No... no, not giving up..."
Okay then. James does as Soteriologist asks, breaking open his precious iPod(sacrifices must be made for heroism), carefully removing the metal, looping it, and stabbing it into his throat, focusing the word "38" into it.
And then he hopes.
[COMP: 3/3] Transformation.
You jam the metal into your throat, the brief jolt of pain quickly dulling. Your skin becomes transparent, the flesh beneath rapidly desiccating, the color and opacity quickly draining away into a pale, ghostly blue. The wound stops growing and you feel light, very, very light. You are also made out of aerogel now, which while ensuring you aren't dying from the venom, probably won't save you from another hit.
The explodey murder lobster is now barrelling towards you, with your augmented vision indicating that it's given up on trying to shank you and is now just aiming to blow you apart with another explosion.
"I... er, yeah. Sure." Ao responds slowly. "Oh fuck. I totally underestimated effects of this..."
Can I perhaps turn particle sweep back on? This seems very dangerous. If the core of this isn't destroyed yet, then figure out where it is and curb stomp it into submission. If getting out of LATRANS is required, then do so and use the assault rifle instead.
MDEF +1
UTAR +3
COMP +3
TRAN +1
There are no options for the drive whatsoever and attempts to access it give an "Access Denied" error warning. Whelp that's useful.
You head over to the core where you sent the soldiers, they aren't doing very well. They have taken positions near parked cars around the office block that houses it. The lobby has been pocked with thousands of bullet marks and you can see a bloody streak and several shredded pieces of meat that were once probably people. Demons are running amok through their front lines ruining all sense of fire discipline. Around the elevators in the lobby is a void of smoking black miasma that blocks every form of sight. Above the soldiers hover several black winged demons with limbs and torsos wrapped in barbed wire, which they unfurl to lash and whip the soldiers from above, the lashing rather ineffectual due to the LUPUS' frenzied spray forcing them to keep on dodging.
"Oh shit, I didn't mean to do that."
"Okay! TZINACAN, Tell me the secrets of this sniper."
Meanwhile, don't provoke the bear, get up close to the warehouse to obscure view and try to get inside, if I do get inside, unleash a wide blast from my broom, along with 22 ixc splitting my UTAR between all revealed targets.
The bear seems distracted by the fact that it exists and whatnot so it poses little threat. The very angry and large firing squad, twelve men strong, however opens fire with the shotgunners tossing grenades as you attempt to dash through the door.
[UTAR vs. MDEF: 1 vs. 0] Squire on overwatch.
[MDEF vs. LTAR: INEFFECTIVE] Soldiers grenade you.
[SDEF vs. UTAR: -1 vs. 4, -3] Soldiers fire upon bear.
[MDEF vs. LTAR: -1 vs. -1, 0, -1, 1] Soldiers shoot at you.
[UTAR vs. MDEF: 2 vs. 0] Counterattack on Soldier #2.
[UTAR vs. MDEF: 0 vs. 0] Counterattack on Soldier #3.
[UTAR vs. MDEF: 0 vs. 0] Counterattack on Soldier #4.
[UTAR vs. MDEF: 1 vs. 0] Counterattack on Soldier #5.
[UTAR vs. MDEF: 1 vs. 0] Counterattack on Soldier #6.
[LTAR vs. MDEF: -1 vs. 0] Bear attacks Soldier #7.
[LTAR vs. MDEF: -1 vs. 0] Bear attacks Soldier #8.
You take two hits as you enter, the first nicks your left arm, painful for future you but not really damaging. The next takes you in the left shoulder again, again not painful just yet, but chances are, when this transformation ends, you won't have that arm for much longer. The bear meanwhile takes a spray of LMG fire point blank, its form partially shattering and while trying to slash at its attackers, fails to connect with either saber.
The grenades detonate bathing you in a lovely mixture of shrapnel, fire and a pressure wave. The experience leaves you much more battered and bleeding, only the transformation is keeping what would be debilitating pain away. You duck into the warehouse as another hail of gunfire strikes a staccato rythm against the outside of the building. The empty warehouse. That was decidedly non-empty before. All there is now are a pile of bodies thoughtlessly taking up space in the corner and a large heavy steel trapdoor in the middle of the room surrounded by bloodstains.
Squire rushes to join you atop Ropey, having been ignored by virtue of not being as interesting as the abomination or the bear.
...
"Oh.
I suffered from terminal existence failure didn't I?"
...
"Drat."
Take further stock of my surroundings, what's with the scribbles? Any adult size clothes in this room? Do I hear anyone outside the room? Check out the computer while I'm at it.
If nothing in this room is particularly interesting and if the inhabitants don't seem to be home then look around for clothes and anything that might work as armor (sporting gear/clothes?) , any weapons (or promising improv weapons), and definitely look for any batteries or powersources I could possibly take with me.
I need to prep quick apparently. Someone didn't get the memo that Magnet Murderbears are a bad investment xD I thought bad investments were my specialty!
Try "avdi" (full comp)
Ask my hander:
"There's got to be some way to augment myself, even with my limited magical vocabulary.. have any tips or tricks?" (Just looking for some in-universe non-meta exposure to.. whatever the heck Hawk and Beirus did. I remember someone saying at some point about inscriptions, but.. what? 
)
The scribbles are quite varied, some are of various people most of which are obviously black operations, eight of which have sigils forcefully drawn in the top left corners. The sigils appear to be: a crosshair, a wrench, a die, a magnifying glass, a paw print, a dagger, a book, and three dots joined with two lines.
[TRAN: 3/3] Piercing the Cloak.
You check the computer and see, corpses. Some soon-to-be, others definitely dead.
There they are, lying in broad daylight for all to see. No one's helping. Why aren't they helping? Can't they see? Those who they trample. Those who are breathing their last, right next to them. It's surreal, the lady splattered in blood, nonchalantly wiping away the stains, the maintenance staff repairing the bullet holes with abject boredom, the little boy giving a the smallest of parting glances to his fallen father, the look of mild annoyance etched into his eyes.
You see someone screaming, a knife pointed to their throat, wielded by a figure in a navy business coat. One of the more professionally focused photos you recognize. It was from a few months back, before the war, before this whole mess. You saw it in a newspaper article, something about a charity marathon, the runners treading across bright data displays and sponsor logos on the road beneath. You didn't care much for the picture back then, but looking at it again you can't help but think that perhaps, that guy getting their head blown off with a shotgun is a bit odd.
Well, this really is more Tzi's game than mine,
but the cards speak for themselves.
This is what you need loaded dice to see.
Clothing is present and varied a little big but still better than running around in your underwear. Other people are absent although there is a picture of the person that presumably lives here, a young man with brown hair who standing with a blonde woman of similar youthfulness. In the background, you see what appears to be the world's least covert assassination being summarily ignored. Perhaps that is what inspired this this collection of images.
You look into the closet and find several changes of clothing along with a large number of textbooks on advanced physics, all heavily used. In the base of the closet is a small safe. In the kitchen is a knife which you grab. Power sources are unfortunately lacking however.
[COMP: 1/1] Spell.
You feel the pull of the sky above you, as if it were pulling something
out of your head and flinging it upwards.
Take something pliable, like a wire, and twist an end into a loop.
Focus words into it, and jam it into something. Converts it.
Though if it's life-like enough, enough to hold some chips at any rate,
it's only an overlay. Damage or remove the antenna and it reverts.
Not quite what happened to your partner back there, but still able
to keep you from folding if used well. For people? It sort of traces the nerves.
Jam it close enough to your head and you'll become something completely different.
Into your wrist and only your hand will change. Into your groin (wouldn't recommend it)
and only your legs.
That's most you can do without specialized tools, or using specific spells.
I'll point those tools out if they're in the pot or if you see them in the field.
"I'm not bleeding to death now? Hell yeah. Except now I'm made of a flammable material and my biggest weapon fires plasma. Well, one problem at a time. Let's get this shit stabilized if it isn't already and make these stormy fucks regret ever laying eyes on us."
Move with Hawk if he goes to get something to stabilize my form. Then let's get our asses in the building. Check the APC for that med kit or anything else useful if it won't make us waste too much time and get attacked out in the open.
You search the APC with Hawk grabbing the medkit held in the back. A proper medkit, a military medkit, with everything needed to handle your wound. That being said, the designers were expecting anyone with that kind of injury to just lie down and not swan dive around in the middle of a storm, so how useful it is for you right now is debatable.
Scavenge the APC for something antenna-like to jam into Beirus. Once I have something antenna-like jammed into Beirus' body, stabilize the spell. Then let's get ourselves into the building.
You scavenge until you find the breakdown kit, grabbing a spanner you platonically jam it into Beirus.
[COMP: 7/5] Whitmore's magic.
[TRAN: 13/5] O'Greenahan's resist.
Stabilized. Okay, everything is fine. Mostly fine at any rate.
You begin running towards the building and then, all blue hell breaks loose.
From above you hear, if you can hear silence, a roar of utter silence, nothingness. Even the beating of your own heart is soundless. The storm winds slow and from the sky descends a great beast of ice and nothingness, a dragon of bone graven with icy blue runes and pictograms that while to far to read, you know contain the entirety of the ideas of a perfect civilization from aeons ago where it was a god. The monstrosity is utter stagnation given form, at its heart and through its form you see stars barely contained within it, all of them are cold and dead, preserved by the perverse power of this abomination. Circling it in a halo are six great shards of ice, each with eyes and wings that burn with the same frozen fire as the heart of the beast.
Five great rocs of ice dive through the wind wall, towards the dragon, seemingly ignoring you and your compatriot.
Those shards the alien wanted? This is a piece of one.
A very large one.
Author
Topic: Perplexicon - Down the Foxhole - Raining Mecha (Read 177435 times)