Well, when you run out of options, it's time to get creative. hey, X4 This might sting a bit, but I'm getting the guest off you.
Ferrus will launch his missile at the Mage crawling over the titan, If he can he'll have it activate it's submunitions and have them hit the mage rather than the main warhead.
Intent not to be outdone by the titans, Ferrus levels his enormous missile launcher on an ally.
[Contingent: 5]
The missile screams through the air for a half-second before shattering into a small swarm of angry, buzzing, burning, explosive insects. By some amazing feat of luck each and every one of their tiny brains recognises the target, and they race in for the kill.
[Surprise half dozen missiles to the face: 2]
Thomas, preoccupied with drawing out his inner strength, fails to notice anything, and all half dozen of the submunitions slam into him and explode.
[And now the true test... hold fast, or expire?: 3]
Three of the missiles dig into Thomas's abdomen and explode, ripping him in two and flinging the upper half a yard away. One collides with his left shoulder, turning that limb into useless meat. The remaining two hit his legs, turning that now dead flesh into a quite large and messy stain on X4's titan.
[Perception - Wise:
1 5]
Ferrus watches where Thomas lands after that detonation, in a bed of leaves. That injury is easily enough to kill any normal human, but the weaponmaster groans and opens his eyes. Still conscious, and not screaming.
Alright, let's try and focus my remaining mana energy towards healing my eyes, or at least partially regaining vision. Rest them and blindfold them like I said I would after I do all I can to heal them.
Mana can help you correct for injuries and survive things that might normally kill you, but it can't directly heal what's broken. You cover your eyes with a bandage and let yourself rest for a bit, trying to let your magic take over where your body has failed you. Gradually you come to realize just how sharp your other senses are. The smell of blood, and the smoke that also smells of blood. The breath of the unconscious woman in front of you. Distantly, a rapid series of explosions that ring a nearby metal surface, and the accompanying squelch of a human body hitting the ground a short distance away. Whirring servos keeping the smaller warmachine balanced. Booted feet running, under more weight than a single human body; carrying something.
Oh, and a flashbang going off, right where you were hearing those steps. But you think you'd probably be able to hear that anyway.
Command give you the number of a Hardsuit guy who's apparently on the way over. Assume that link works now.
[Blindness Recovery: 1 1] (I cheated and gave you a second roll because I felt sorry for you, and because you hadn't crit failed the FIRST time. But welp.)
Your vision does not return. You feel someone pick you up. They seem to be running with you over their shoulder?
Can I feel who is transporting me? Can I make contact with this person/suit, or perhaps at least feel if it's a mech or a person carrying me? If I can't make contact or it feels like a person and not a mech carrying me, point blank flashbang time! Like literally explode it next to/in front of their face or something, if possible.
"Ferrus? Is... is that you? Please don't tell me it's one of the Titan fucks."
(over radio to the hardsuit guy command connected me to): "My name is Lana Silvers, first Expeditionary Marine corps, mech support. Are you our backup? If yes, the locals have weird magic powers, be advised. One or two of our pilots may be compromised, they mowed down my entire squad."
Definitely an unsuited human. Rough leather clothing, body warmth, and the slightly faster breathing of someone who is running. Whoever it is doesn't respond to you, so you grab a flashbang from your belt and-
[
]
You thankfully don't get to have your eyes burned out a second time today, but still, all you can hear is ringing. You are now laying on the ground.
Continue Operation: GTFO
Tanya does something and it has some results.
"Prepare to die."
PUSH. Climb up the enemy mech, get on top of the cockpit(I can tell what the cockpit is by tapping it with my foot and listening to the noise from that), and start cutting my way into the cockpit.
Roll over on Thomas.
Unfortunately, your plans for a battle are interrupted by one of you being blown in half and flung halfway across the forest. How rude.
Instead, X4 manages to bring his mech back up to a standing position. Only superficial damage to the mech itself, but the miniguns will require some fixing.
Push all the butans and yell at high command to unlock the thing.
Every button you press increases the volume on the video, which would also appear to now be uncapped. You scream at whoever will listen on the other end of the radio but nobody seems to care.
Hey, everyone hears a flashbang go off, by the way. Everyone.
Name: X4-18
Class: Titan
Appearance: A gruff and muscular man, he constantly wears combat armor and a full face helmet with gasmask except when alone.
Mech Appearance: Gunmetal grey and mechanical. An older design which can't move as fast, but is quite flexible, able to swivel the whole torso 360 degrees.
Arcane: 67/100
Attributes:
Unrelenting
Engineer
Overconfident
Inventory:
Twin Miniguns (4A each) DISABLED
Missile battery (7A)
Infantry Rifle
Gas Mask
Personal Armor
Upgrades:
Name: Ferrus Veteris
Class: Tech gear
Appearance: A grizzled man with a scar over one eye and and hair that's just beginning to go gray. A veteran of a number of battles of the mech wars, he is noted for his skill as a mechanic frequently working on his own battle gear after the battle. Recently he has also taken up working accounts of skill both his own and those of his fallen comrades into the practical camouflage of his mech. Don't taunt him about it, he doesn't take it well. While he used to have a reputation for always wanting to be on the front lines and directly covering mechs as he made rapid repairs now a days he mostly is known to hang back and use his drones to repair them.
Mech Appearance: A battle gear that bears the marks of many battles, each of which has been repaired with varying degrees of competency and care, the welding at times elegant and paint job of mottled green with subtle designs of hypogryths and manticores worked into bearing either skilled artistry or the basest of apprenticeships. It's drones are similarly marked up, kept in excellent repair but clearly bear the marks of beasts and bullets.
Arcane: 61/100
Attributes:
Engineer
Wise
Merciful
Inventory:
"Contingent" Heavy Missile System (6A)
2x SMG Repair Drones (3A activation. Remain active for 3 turns before needing to recharge. If a drone does not dock before running out of energy, it will be lost.)
Long-Range Comms
Repair Tools
Infantry SMG
Upgrades:
Name: Aigresaur
Class: Titan
Appearance: A cute nubile youth in a green dinosaur onesie. His eyes are a striking blue and his beard an impressive brown, possibly due to not being washed regularly. He seems functional as a pilot, but he believes that he is a dinosaur and doesn't talk in complete sentences.
Mech Appearance: A standard mech painted with a feather pattern reminiscent of a dinosaur. There is a rather massive cannon mounted on the back.
Arcane: 70/100
Attributes:
Unrelenting
Resistant
Blood-lusty
Inventory:
Spinal Plasma Cannon (15A)
Point Defence Cannons (4A)
Big Chompy Dinosaur Maw (4A)
Crate of Beef Jerky
Jerry can of ultra-caffeinated caramel soda
Infantry Rifle
Personal Armor
Upgrades:
Name: Lana Silvers
Class: Rifleman
Appearance: A woman in her early thirties who went into the service after her husband died on a hunt for mystical mana beasts. Still hasn't fully overcome the loss, but shields herself from it by focusing on her job. Usually very professional, but likes ooking into the ol' bottle a tad bit too much.
Stamina: Deafened, battered, and tired of this shit.
Attributes:
Expendable
Inverse Ninjutsu?
Blind
Inventory:
Infantry rifle
Combat armor
2 grenades (smoke, teargas)
Training:
Basic
Name: Donnel Adderson
Class: Weaponmaster (Razor Buckler)
Appearance: Pale skinned with brown eyes tinged with sea green, and messy brown hair with a goatee. He is average sized but on the thin side muscle-wise. He typically wears a gray and tunic and trouser pair with his spirit animal, an octopus, embroidered in green on the back.
Mana: 3/3
Push: 0/0
Attributes:
Quick witted
Medic
Merciful
Blind
Inventory:
Soulbound steel buckler shield with razor sharp edges
Steel chainmail hauberk
Steel-capped quarterstaff
Medical supplies
Advancements:
Name: Tanya Xelcarostia
Class: Shifter (Selfshifter / Lightshifter)
Appearance: Brown eyes, tan skin, brown hair bound in a ponytail, with moderately angular facial features. Short ad thinly built, with splotchy brown leather clothing. Spirit animal - swift fox.
Mana: 1/3
Push: 0/0
Attributes:
Aware
Spiritual
Frail
Inventory:
Silent Marksman's Rifle
First aid kit
Travel pack with food/water/survival gear
3 harmless smoke grenades
1 white phosphorus incendiary smoke grenade
Advancements: None
Name: Thomas Blackshroud
Class: Weaponmaster (Daggermacewhip)
Appearance: Thomas Blackshroud looks every bit the weaponmaster, pitch black hair, pitch black eyes(he wears contacts, they do stop him from seeing, but that's irrelevant...), black leather armor, black boots, black gloves... His Spirit Animal is the Bat
Mana: 3/3
Push: 0/0
Attributes:
Aware
Unrelenting
Blind
Inventory:
Black Getup
Soulbound Daggermacewhip
3 Smoke Bombs
Advancements:
"My name is Lana Silvers, first Expeditionary Marine corps, mech support. Are you our backup? If yes, the locals have weird magic powers, be advised. One or two of our pilots may be compromised, they mowed down my entire squad."
"Hahaa, of fucking course! Zrand couldn't lead that stick out his ass, let alone real pilots in a firefight! Bastard got what he deserved, finally. You got the numbers for those pilots? Bah, of course you don't, you're just some mook. Thanks for the info, now shut up and get off my comms! Your shrieky voice clashes with my tunes."
Narcissus will shut Lana off, if she doesn't hang up first, then see about calling up the pilots himself. Keep blasting the music on full volume, just shout over it while talking.
Name: Narcissus
Class: Hardsuit
Appearance: A very red anime dude with slicked back hair. Wears a red hooded cape, with a red vest and TACTICAL KILT.
Mech Appearance: Solid black, skull painted on the front of the head. Bits of short, tattered black cloth hang off the limbs and body.
Arcane: 94/100
Attributes:
Deadly
Acrobatic
Overconfident
Inventory:
Large full-auto Scythegun (4A, both as melee and gun)
SMG (Scythe Machine Gun)
Upgrades:
You shut Lana off. You don't know why she would even bother to call you, when she doesn't even have a problem. Stupid ungrateful marines.
The navigation computer beeps and notifies you that you've reaches your destination, so you regain manual control and perform a graceful dive down through the trees, landing near the other mechs.
One tech gear with two broken drones laying around it, one titan with disabled main weapons, another titan in low-power mode with a "do not disturb" signal, a perfectly undamaged hardsuit with its pilot's corpse laying outside it, and just one enemy who just got splattered by the looks of it. Oh, and lots of fires. All this looks like some hefty evidence that these people all managed to get totally messed up by a single unarmed human with "weird magic powers"; probably just some primative magic tricks.
Sometimes other people's incompetence staggers you.
Name: Jake "War Crime squad" Vahlen
Class: Tech Gear
Appearance: Brown eyes and hair, simple plain clothing that does not match in any particular way, wearing pretty much the first thing he drags out in the morning. He seems a bit off, having a grin on his face, which is covered in scars and marks of combat.
Mech Appearance: Simple urban digital camo scheme. Painted with kill marks on the shoulder of the left arm friendly kills included. Covered in scratches and signs of wear created from careless and reckless use.
Arcane: 100/100
Attributes:
Acrobatic
Resistant
Blood-lusty
Inventory:
Minigun (4A)
2x SMG Combat Drones (2A activation. Remain active for 3 turns before needing to recharge. If a drone does not dock before running out of energy, it will be lost.)
Pistol
Field Saber (Arcane powered energy melee weapon)
Upgrades:
You sigh and take another sip of wine. You could be out going on an exiting mech mission right now, on this foreign new world, but instead you're sitting in your quarters and drinking because command says your track record "indicates that you're not suited for first-contact missions".
Bullshit! Those natives were reaching for pipe bombs and about to explode you all! You
had to gun them down. As for why no explosives were found on the corpses... well, you always suspected that Narcissus was s thief. Probably stole them to sell for "Narcissus is great" trophies or whatever it is he puts up in his room.
Ugh, you're bored. Maybe something interesting is going on somewhere else.
Name: Guraq Zaev
Class: Shifter (Sameshift, Lightshift)
Appearance: Elderly, as his wizened appearance would suggest. Shoulder-length strands of frayed gray hair sprout around the weather-beaten bald patch crowning his dome. His eyes are unusually bright and golden in hue. An esoteric scar (which may or may not imply past involvement with a cult or criminal organisation) covers his wrinkled forehead, and is typically kept hidden under a headband. Carries himself with regal grace, despite having lost the reflexes of his youth. His spirit animal is the Crow.
Mana: 3/3
Push: 0/0
Attributes:
Deadly+
Sluggish
Inventory:
Long dagger
3x anatomically-correct wooden marionettes
Stout wooden cane
Advancements:
You're at the entranceway to the Roth Mages Academy in Xeniga, about to head out. Apparently the fleshshifters ran out of toads ahead of schedule, so now you have to run out to the animal store and buy some so they can do tomorrow's class. Why exactly this is your problem beats you, and you're tempted to ignore them and do something else, but you're not quite sure what that would be just yet. At least grabbing toads is more interesting than sitting around doing nothing.
Author
Topic: Power and Pulse: Crimson Sky (Read 39052 times)