Topic: Web of Life: A Drider's Adventure (Ended) (Read 188605 times)

Liquefied Spleens · « **Reply #2595 on:** November 12, 2018, 10:32:52 am »

Due to personal circumstances, updates will be postponed until Saturday. I'm sorry, but the thing taking up my time is really important.

omada · « **Reply #2596 on:** November 12, 2018, 08:13:33 pm »

That's alright, good luck with whatever is happening

Liquefied Spleens · « **Reply #2597 on:** November 17, 2018, 07:20:00 pm »

Well, I'm excited to try it out, but I'l need about several hours to make a proper payload system in that cat. Not to mention, the dosage is kind of hard. On an average human, sure, i can make a guess from how large they are, but this thing is some bug-mix. I can't be sure if I'm going to be injecting enough. Or, conversely, just end up killing him.
Well, I don't NEED him alive. I'm just hoping I can uproot everything that little bastard worked for. Also, I think modifying the cat should be fairly easy. I can modify a little about it myself, though not to the point of replacing claws with needles.
I wouldn't do all the claws. Just one in each paw would work. Otherwise it won't be able to catch mice as efficiently... That, and needles break fairly easy. Best if application that can be done in a swift stabbing motion.
Could just use a thicker hollow blade.
Not if you want to be sure it gets in the bloodstream. It needs to be long enough to be sure, and the more contact area, the more force is needed for it to get deep. And we are working with a cat. A cat that looks like it eats other cats, sure, but still just a cat.
Tom haughtily taps her face with his tail. Seems he doesn't appreciate being called "just" a cat. Well, familiars do have a lot more personality than the average undead minion. This one's personality is "cat". Something it actually sleeps, despite it not needing any. It just does it out of habit and a supreme love of lazing about. But that's beside the point.
So, a few hours, yes? I'll just talk to some people around town, tell them about this whole cultist business, hopefully get that cleared up before we move in on the bug.
...How do you know those people aren't part of the cult?
The merchant that told me to look for a stash, there's no way he'd have me follow the guy if it could lead me to a shrine.

And how would HE know who is and isn't a cultist? you suddenly hear from behind you. Turns out that Yunikki never quite lost that knack for getting close to people without getting heard. If only she could apply that in actual stealth situations...
I mean, he'd know, right? He's not an outsider.
The man owns a building from which he sells things while all the other merchants tend to use a tent. I think he's pretty far removed from the layman.
There are others with buildings.
Not my point. The thing is, the guy is loaded. He wouldn't be paying enough attention to notice.
Kind of assuming a lot, here.
And it doesn't get us anywhere. I think the lady from the order might be a better, regardless. She doesn't even go into town a lot, so she's not likely to be part of anything. Not to mention, that cult wouldn't be actively fighting the disease with visible results.
Unless they're very convincing.
You're just paranoid. Look, Sucy and Francine can work on my cat, in the meantime I'll talk to the order. They'll take this seriously, they were there during my first encounter. They introduced a flesh golem, you know?
I'm coming with you. Just in case
And because you have nothing better to do~! Francine says, sing-song. Nobody should look that happy when they're carrying a tray of surgical instruments and needles.
Run along now, I've got the tools to work on the cat. Sucy will help make sure those toxins won't affect the cat. few toxins workon an undead, but Sucy's work tends to be... inspired.

You go the front of town, and it doesn't take long to find your target. Mostly because you just had to follow the screaming. Looks like your captive lost his mind completely. He's just screaming a lot, now, which is attracting all of the order to take a closer look. He's restrained exceptionally well, of course, and guessing from the muzzle he's now wearing, he won't be biting through anything.
Ah, you're here. As you can hear, he's officially lost it. He was in a more quiet mood before this.
Yeah, it's... kind of audible. Anyway, I've got some really bad news about the city. We've got cultists.
Hm? What kind?
Worshipping the gestating god bad. The one selling the suits is an outright bug demon. I fought one of those things before, they're... pretty up there.
...What the hell are you talking about? she says, more tired than confused. Oh no.
Look, the fact that he's raising the prices unfairly may be not be right, but that's no reason to outright call him a damn demon. And accusing them of praying to something destroying the world? Ludicrous. But, look. I can tell you've been through a lot, so I won't-
You raise your demon hand, and stare her directly in the eyes. With how close you are, you can see them through the tinted glass of her mask. Green eyes.
Listen to me. Your organisation has SEEN one of those god-damned bugs before. They were PRESENT. You're not telling ME that you don't know what I'm talking about!
It's an understatement to say there is venom in your voice. You're visibly scaring the surrounding beakheads, and while your conversation partner doesn't back off entirely, it's clear you're spooking her.
I... Yes, I have heard of "bugmen" surrounding this business, it came up during some briefings. I never got the full details, but I heard of some of the dissection... I suppose you're the one that tore it apart with your bare hands, then? I suppose I should have guessed. There's a hint of wryness in there. You don't much care for it. before you can say anything, though, she speaks again, tone resolute.
Look. I understand where you're coming from, you've fought a lot of things that shouldn't even be met, but how do I know you're not just paranoid? If I send in people to help take down an influential trader, who specializes in something I want, what will the city think? They'll see it as an attack. I need proof, if I'm going to make a move.
That's it, then?
Please understand my position. If there is proof, we can work with the city to stamp this insanity out. But until then, my hands are tied.
Fine. See you later, then.

That's a bust, then. Cowards.
They want proof, right? I'll give them some friggin' proof. I'll give them that whole bug.
Yeah, that's pretty compelling evidence. Where are we going next?

Go to the trader.
Might be a bit of a risk, if he is a part of the cult after all. But, probably not, right?

Go to the eggheads and look how far along your cat is.
Maybe you can apply some magic to make it go faster. Also, lets you choose when you get that cat to do its poisonous magic.

Get to that bugman yourself
Forget drugging the bastard, you're fixing this NOW.

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Devastator · « **Reply #2598 on:** November 17, 2018, 08:03:17 pm »

Get that cat ready. It'd be nice to know if we can war-animal our familiars for the actual upcoming battle. If we drag this guy out alive, good, dead, well, we'll survive.

Egan_BW · « **Reply #2599 on:** November 17, 2018, 10:37:13 pm »

No need to take risks, just get that cat ready and catch a bugman.

Liquefied Spleens · « **Reply #2600 on:** November 19, 2018, 05:06:43 pm »

Let's go see how the cat is doing. I'll help out a bit where I can.
Playing it safe. Alright.
You head back to the eggheads, who are hard at work trying to get the cat to work with them. As far as cats go, it's working, really. He's sitting still and only occasionally nibbling. Mostly it's just haughtily swatting them with his tail. Of course, Sucy's patience is wearing thin very rapidly. It's har dot tell, but you've seen enough of her moods back at the tower to know wen she's getting angry. It's not easily visible, but she tends to chew on her lip a little. She can do more expressive anger, but when she restrains it it's limited to a small squint and the aforementioned lip-chewing. In your experience it's actually worse than visible rage. The things she did to some people...
As for the needle additions, it's going fairly slow. Having to work with the paws is a precise business, considering they still want everything in working order. At your command, the cat doesn't move a muscle in that leg, or most of its body, but the tail keeps going. Eventually Sucy vents her anger in a productive manner, in a far less horrible way than you predicted. She just slammed the tail against the table and slammed a nail through it. That she has carpenter's nails on her isn't even surprising, but you hadn't expected the pommel of her dagger to be solid or thick enough to hit the nail in the table one go.
The cat raises an eyebrow, and decides to fake falling asleep. If nothing else, the surgery turns easier then.

You spend a little mana to open up a few passageways and to knit the flesh together where needed. The hardest part was to create a way for the poison to be added. There is very little circulation in the cat's body, but the poison won't achieve the desired effect when spread around the body. In addition, the liquids needed a fairly flexible place to stay. A tough leather pouch is used, and the needle is relatively large. It sticks out from between the claw, and adding pressure to the needle from the front should deliver the payload just fine. It took about an hour and a half to get it all done, and your team suspects that it'll take a little longer to make sure everything's solid and the input port actually works. Not to mention, Sucy needs to make the stuff that'll make the bugman stay out of it for a while. She's glad an overdosis isn't an issue, but she'll need a little longer to get that made. When you release your cat from not moving (and pry the nail out of the tail), it's quick to head off somewhere. It's careful enough to not accidentally hit the needle as it walks, though it looks a little "off" in how she lifts that one foot up entirely like a bad string puppet.

With the extra few moments, you have the time to figure out where you're going to poison him.

Somewhere public.
If he suddenly faints, you can move in to "help" him. If you happen to reveal that he's a weird bug thing, that would put it out in the open instantly.

Somewhere secretive.
He spends some time alone. Perfect time to drug and abduct.

Somewhere private
Just between you and him. You could likely convince him to follow you for a moment, if you found a good reason.
That might be difficult, come to think of it.

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Egan_BW · « **Reply #2601 on:** November 19, 2018, 10:29:24 pm »

Somewhere secret.

Get him in his cellar, then we can nab the body. At the least, it'll provide proof to the beakies.

Liquefied Spleens · « **Reply #2602 on:** November 21, 2018, 05:31:40 pm »

It took a long time for the merchant to finally leave his store and to move back to a more secret location. Unfortunately, he didn't go for the basement you were hoping to nab him, and he elected to go for his actual house, instead. It's kind of surprising to you that he even has one that isn't a hell-basement, but he was likely somebody before the whole cult-business. Or took over after somebody, considering you're pretty sure those bug-men aren't transformed people in so far as they're more advanced demons. Or less? They're far less deadly, sure, but they have intelligence. In general kind of worse, especially when it comes to infiltrating a society and destroying it from the inside-out. And they're still right bastards to take down. "Weaker" is such a relative term. Still, you elected to go for the "if he dies, he dies" approach of drugging the bastard. Your cat has little issue stalking him, because who would think to look at a mangy-looking cat more than once? You keep her fur decent enough through some modifications (and something about that cat just prevents it from getting too haggard, somehow.). It's not easy to spot on first glance that the cat is undead.
When he enters the home, you quickly note that your cat will get an even easier entry than the hidden worship point. No need to sneak by his legs in the ballsiest stealth manoeuvrer known to man (and cat), you can just enter through the window. They don't have that much glass in their buildings, and while their windows are appropriately small to compensate, it's just big enough for Tom to squeeze in.

You wait outside, by the door, as your familiar begins the surprise attack. The sudden startled screams go unheard in the hustle and bustle of the streets, and you smile when you hear the by now familiar thump of a body hitting the ground. Getting yourself inside the house takes a little while, as your cat needs to make a few jumps to reach the door handle. You enter without a hitch, and close the door behind you. Not quite as secret as a mystery basement, but secure enough. Now, the matter of transport...
You write a quick note to your companions to bring a cart and a blanket, or at least something similar enough to it. Your cat will deliver it, as you won't need him any longer while you're here. While that's going on, you take a closer look at your bugman. He's very convincingly human, you must say. If it wasn't for those wings (that fold into his back, even. You can at least see the creases where they go in.), you'd never know he was a bug. The drugs are working perfectly, as well, so proof should be a cinch. Sometimes, these thing just kind of disappear entirely, either by melting or spontaneously combusting. It's probably kind of lucky that it just worked.
It doesn't take long before your companions are here, cart and blanket at the ready. You wait for a quiet moment on the street, and after it takes too long you elect to just do it really fast. Of course, the same old rule applies: as long as you look like you're supposed to be here, nobody will notice. Nobody calls anything out, nor do people even stop to stare. Out of sight, out of mind. You pull the cart forward, out of the city. At least there is one advantage to looking like a servant, people won't assume you have an agenda. Finally, you reach the city gates, and enter the camp of the Order of the Blighted Beak.

How are you going to show this off? Too much at once might just cause a knee-jerk reaction where they call a guard...

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Egan_BW · « **Reply #2603 on:** November 21, 2018, 05:41:39 pm »

Keep it covered for now, but happily inform the speaking beak that we have obtained a bug demon-shaped proof of a bug demon in the city. Ask if she wants to see~

omada · « **Reply #2604 on:** November 23, 2018, 01:05:47 pm »

Quote from: Egan_BW on November 21, 2018, 05:41:39 pm

Keep it covered for now, but happily inform the speaking beak that we have obtained a bug demon-shaped proof of a bug demon in the city. Ask if she wants to see~

this, and prepare for "getting info"

Liquefied Spleens · « **Reply #2605 on:** November 23, 2018, 06:18:09 pm »

I have proof of a bugman in the city.
Really now? And what would that be? Please don't tell me you just murdered a man over a hunch.
I have a drugged bugman in that cart as we speak. He has the wings, and more. And you already know of the connection between the cult and that bugman.
...What!?
You throw off the blanket, revealing the demon to the doctor. Her face is hard to describe, to say the least, switching through a myriad of emotions before eventually settling on fear.
Oh gods. Oh no. This city... Oh no.
What? We established cult presence. Just have to start clearing it out.
No, no. You don't understand. If the cult is in the city to this extent... They could unleash the plague, if they so desire. They undoubtably have it on them. They might even be spreading it now that we captured their monster... But we can't ive him up, of course. Strap him down next to our main test subject. There's a table there.
Strap him down? What are you going to do?
See what makes him tick.
Ooh, dark.

I'm all for a massive amount of medical-styled violence, but what should we do about this Mutually Assured Destruction business?
No no! There's nothing "mutual" about this, we may have just forced them to make them infect the town faster. Of course, why would they even wait?
More cultist recruitment, first?
Yes, exactly. We assumed the cultists were a part of the disease, but if they didn't spread it as fast as this... Maybe it as before. Communication is a tad disrupted, I'm not sure anymore.
Alright. So what do we do?
We learn what we can, and then we start rooting out cultists. Maybe we get lucky, and prevent this city from falling... Or we try to convince the leaders that an evacuation is needed.
Also: We should get those suits from that basement you described. Yunikki and I can go get them alone, if it's unguarded. We could fight our way through if there is any trouble. Small rooms are a good place for me.
Right. I'll get to work on dissecting this... thing. I'm rather interested to see how those wings work.

Join your companions in getting those suits.
Not that you don't trust them, but better safe than sorry.

Start an evacuation
Or, uh, try to convince the aloof leaders of town that there MIGHT be a really bad thing incoming.

Start hunting cultists.
You'll need a place to start tracking, somehow.

Stick around for the dissection.
These things go wrong when you're gone.

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Egan_BW · « **Reply #2606 on:** November 23, 2018, 06:39:26 pm »

Stick around.

Seeing how one of these things is put together will help find more of them. Maybe we could even devise some way to use magic to identify hidden demons.

...Also, evacuation is likely to just make this worse. The cultists will just follow and start the plague in a place where people have even less way to fight back. A moving caravan or city crowded with refugees is the ideal spot to plant something like that.
Quarantining parts of the city could help, but still doesn't save the city if the cult is distributed enough and has stockpiles of place samples. Which is ernest they'd do if they were smart. They might be dumb cultists. But relying on your enemy being an idiot is a bad strategy.

So, the best solution is to move as fast as possible. Root out as many cultists as we can before they act, then react to spots afflicted by plague attacks as swiftly and decisively as possible. Bring in only people with suits or immunity, kill everyone infected and incinerate the bodies.
Getting help from the beakies will be very important for this part, as they can be in more places at once than we can. Getting help from the city government will also be helpful. Maybe for extra manpower depending if we have spare suits, but mostly so that we don't have to fight them when we end up murdering citizens and burning buildings. They probably won't do anything until there's an obvious problem though, even if we show off the bugman. So best to not tell them anything 'till it's started...

omada · « **Reply #2607 on:** November 23, 2018, 07:38:06 pm »

Test with a bit of mana, we might discover the magic "identify aberration/evil" lvl 1

Devastator · « **Reply #2608 on:** November 24, 2018, 03:12:23 am »

Hunt cultists. If it's this serious, leeching is now on the table. Explain to this person that we can do something to get first-hand info on the cult internals, but it's extremely unethical.

If we can't control it, we raise every dead mutant body we can from this wreck of the city, and use that army to strike back.

Liquefied Spleens · « **Reply #2609 on:** November 25, 2018, 04:46:32 pm »

Update delayed, will hopefully update tomorrow.

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Author Topic: Web of Life: A Drider's Adventure (Ended) (Read 188605 times)

Liquefied Spleens

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omada

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Egan_BW

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omada

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