Okay, First things first. Here's what I got for missions:
One is a retrieval/combat mission. This one has the Leaders a little worked up for some reason. a palpable tension is in the air when it is presented. The target is something called "the Heart of Lathal." The location is a derelict mechano-complex. It is vast, sprawling, three dimensional, and quite possibly haunted. Oh, and there are sure to be squatters, scavengers, and mechapirates.
The second is an exploration. Some Underdwarves have opened a previously unseen (at least, by them) cavern complex. And then they disappeared. This is disturbing to the Cavern Elves, and they have contracted with Omega for an exploration team to have a peek. it'll be deep, dark, and mysterious. And also possibly haunted. Oh, and if you happen to stumble on the missing Underdwarves, present them with the bill for the expedition.
I'm in no great hurry here - Thanksgiving is coming up and I'll be taking a hiatus for travel. But if you are itching to get going, there they are.
Oh, and the whole chunk of Omegas that left on mission just before you guys returns about now, if they hadn't already. Well, I say "Whole chunk returns," But some of the m are not whole, and some of them did not return. The group looks more chunk than whole, to be honest. The officers who return are quite grim about it as well. One is brought in on a stretcher. at first, with all the activity, Omega feels almost crowded. But after a while, as things settle down, it feels startlingly empty.
5 at a time, at medium risk.
Round 1: You take the bones, mutter "got a good feeling about the Open Braincase formation" and toss. It lands on the Hatched Spider's Nest. "Ooh. Close." And your tokens disappear before you can see where they went.
Aw. Ask some of the higher-ups, maybe they'll have something.
You head over to the headquarters and start bugging the clerk on duty, until at last he passes you along to an exhausted looking lieutenant. The lieutentant Shrugs, laughs about your insistence on alcohol "for medicinal purposes," takes a second look at you, and nods thoughtfully. "Get into the infirmary and start stitching. I'll get you anything you need." he directs you into a cleaner area of Omega, down another hall, and toward a much more organized medical zone. The three sawbones already there have their appendages full with what came back, and more are trickling in, even as their body fluids are trickling out.
The cat cocks his head, and a hint of reproach creeps into his voice. "This one did not mean unnatural carved gem. It wishes for raw gem, still holding part of its home in rock. And Dar'yajira wishes to sense... O'hama? It is unsure of twoleg word. Nature which holds all together, net of life. Structure and belonging of all." the feline violently shakes his head for a second "Mrr, if it must be specific, 'Druidic Creature'. Dar'yajira wishes to find its Master."
Answer. If it is unclear, he's asking for something which would improve his ability to study his earlier discovery better. That is less important than being able to find his master though. The hope was that the two things wouldn't be different.
The mage looks at you for a long time, thinking. "Ah. Home and Belonging eh? Structure, Master, order ... Ah. Lend me your collar, please."
Check that my engraving is undamaged.
also check the rock where the orange line dissipated for any subtle alterations or ore bearing properties.
Then go seek out some wizardly folk and see if they can do something to boost the activation rate.
30 seconds or more to fully activate is woefully impractical for combat use.
The engraving and the rock are unchanged. thirty seconds is for the full ironskin one, if I remember correctly. Rot and soften take less time, and summon swarm is variant, depending on circumstances. The mages look over your spells, do some tests on yourself, and determine that it would be risky to you to edit the spells at this point. You still can, but there will be a higher risk of side effects, backfires, or other harmful effects.
"One potion of great power, certainly. The last one was rather amazing!"
"As for aspects, that's a very good question! I do admire the skua, personally. Not the largest creature, or even the strongest, but it does what it needs to well. And what it does is aggression, theft, harrassment and overall malfeasance. I've heard of these things trying to attack and carry off sheep, bless their hearts! Now that's real, stubborn malice like you can't find elsewhere, wouldn't you agree?"
"Hm, though that does give me a thought. Do you have a convenient tool for harvesting my bile? I think that one's a little more internal that spittle or excrement, no? Oh, and a durable glass receptacle would be great as well. I have an idea for a certain thing I could gather! Though that one's more of a petrel thing than a skua thing. I'll tell you about petrels when I get back - great birds, excellent birds!"
If I get a glass receptacle (complete with stopper, hopefully), go and find Cho-Ja if he's still around anywhere.
"I can extract the bile directly with this" She says, pulling out a large syringe. Looks sharp. "As for a glass container ... If you damage this in any way, you will suffer immensely." With that, she hands you a glass container, carefully wrapped in cloth and stored in a box. "Birds. Most people think of Spiders, insects, and cats when they think malice. But you're not wrong. not nearly as wrong as most."
If Cho doesn't want to hide from you, you find him. Heck, he's in the same region anyway, bugging the mages.
Enter an arena
nice enough place.
it's filled with rocks, uneven ground, and a few dead-looking trees. Looks like an ogre is sleeping about 30 degrees around the circle of the arena, and a lone troll is on the other side, sitting slumped and idly picking at the dirt between his legs.
Clunkers shrugs
"Statement: No offense taken.
Genuine query: If this prisoner is so dangerous as to require sedation, restraining, beign carried aloft and a team of three entities to simply move it to a cell, why even bother to keep it alive? It seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through for a single prisoner who is, this one assumes, just as expendable as the rest of us. "
"You'd be surprised at the amount of effort made to keep you guys alive as well. But your point is well taken. I suppose the answer is simple enough: that which makes her dangerous makes her useful as well. If it is controlled. Besides ..." He gets that weird look organics get sometimes when they are remembering something they don't like. "She wasn't always thus." he shakes his head a little, as if to chase away a fly, and says no more.
Terrence wanders the canyon, looking for things to spend its pocket money on, and perhaps ways to earn more.
((This is both a way for Terrance to gain IC knowledge of the layout of Omega Base, and an invitation to any PC's or NPC's wishing to interact with it.))
Do you have enough ooc knowledge to know the layout and what's available? If so, choose something interesting. I don't feel like rewriting the whole description of hte place and it's inhabitants again. Plus, I forget things sometimes.
Stealth and meele both are going to change for me a lot depending on what form I'm in. Frost Giant and Giant Frost Cat both have some great opportunities in meele. Stealth in regular frostcat, raven form, plantbeing, *totally just a normal horse*, etc., and will often depend not on not being seen, but on not being noteworthy or unnatural. I'll work with Senna on the meele part though for sure.
Alright. She puts you through your paces in terms of transforming and combat. In fact, she takes you to an arena, summons together a variety of beings, and has you work on switching forms, fighting different opponents in those forms, and then switching again. For some opponents, the gal is a throwdown, for others it is to immobilize them, and for yet others it is simply to touch them without harm.As you go, Senna seems to adapt to you, and become more effective at working around your forms and changes.