"Excellent shot, Ferrus. Lana, what is your situation? This is X4, coming to assist."
Stomp off and look for our missing soldier, homing in on her suit signal. If I can, use my Engineer skill to repair the miniguns.
Ferrus smiles within his mech. Well that worked. X4 next time be sure not to let the guy holding a sword run over and take you out after you end shooting your infantry cover. You're in a titan, not a goddamn farm walker.
Ferrus will launch another missile at the weapon master. Practically a mercy like that, Ferrus has seen far too many wounds like this, you don't get back up from it. After launching the missile Ferrus will look up Lana's location and start moving towards it. Eyes peeled for any magic that might be happening.
Noticing the new arrival Ferrus hails them.
Ah, reinforcements excellent. It's a fucking mess down here, My scanners are showing all but one of our infantry is dead. We lost our hardsuit to fucking magic. And to cap it all off Our Titans are likely compromised, shot up our infantry support and one of them broke my fucking drones. There is an edge in his voice here.
"Owwww..."
So I only have one arm left? Okay. Push. Throw a smoke bomb at the enemy minigun mech, charge(by rolling). Once I reach the enemy mech, climb up one-handed and mouthed(I'll use a daggermacewhip held in my mouth as a grappling hook if it helps), reach the cockpit, headbutt my way inside, kill the pilot.
Ferrus, in a clever attempt to circumvent his Merciful flaw, thinks of the murder he is about to attempt as a "mercy-killing". Unfortunately for him, a mercy killing tends to imply that the person you're killing does not currently pose a threat, which is not actually the case here. As such, he takes too long and Thomas goes and does a Push!
[Push: 6]
The Arcane essence in Thomas's bloodstream begins to flow in convoluted patterns, and a glowing blue light pulses into the shape of the body that he's lost. Mana alone cannot fix a broken body, but it can... compensate. He leaps into motion, not bothering to actually move but rather blinking repeatedly, skipping like a stone across the surface of reality, for the purpose of murdering someone.
[Doing the attack part - X4 appears to not think he's still in a fight:
4 4]
Thomas appears just in front of X4's cockpit, and stands there, perched on air. Three metal octopus arms sweep across the front hull, taking the whole thing off as easily as pressing the open button. (Hey, at least you can see what's outside now!...)
[There is a contingency...: 1]
...Okay, nevermind that for now.
[Doing the attack part on the flesh human: 3]
Again the chains rip out and strike, but this time are hindered by, perhaps, the small measure of compassion for fellow humans in even the most stony-hearted of soldiers. Or maybe he misses due to having just lost an extraordinary amount of blood. Either way, the daggers whip out with nearly-not superhuman strength, and X4 is saved by his armor, though he's cut and winded.
Just afterwards, Thomas finally loses focus on his Push, and he falls to the ground, his mana-matter appendages shriveling up and retreating back into his blood, which he's still losing by the way.
[Death's door - Unrelenting: 6]
Thomas's will is strong, and he doesn't give into death just yet. This gives him a perfect opportunity to feel it slipping away, bit by bit, inevitably. Enormity threatens to engulf his mind. Thoughts of revenge, and life, and love, and plans for the future that will never be fulfilled. Of... missed opportunities. Things that he could have done- would have done, if he knew he'd die like this.
Meanwhile, Ferrus fires a rocket at where Thomas was and then opens his eyes. Guess you killed- oh. X4 has taken some heavy damage, and you don't think the squirrels did it. Thomas now lies on the ground under X4's titan, obviously still awake.
Sorry boyos, no running off just yet. If you say to both fight and do something else, I'm gonna prioritize fighting.
Also field-repairing those guns will involve climbing out. Shit don't repair itself.
"Weren't you fools here for a reason? There's a whole town just full of Arcane, yeah? But no, not gonna go harvest that, too busy fucking about like idiots. Yet again, I'm struck by Zrand's ability to pick 'em, at least the bastard's dead now..."
Grab a couple of the mook corpses, and loot their grenades. Then take to the air and head towards the village, looking for the mission objective. NO MORE LANDING; the ground is a terrible terrible place where titan weapons will kill Narcissus through splash damage.
You grab some grenades and hold them in your hands. Gee, sure would be great if these could come with a hardsuit or something. Then they would be attached to your suit, and you'd have as many of them as you wanted! And they'd be Arcane-powered grenades, which are obviously way more awesome than these lowly marine models.
You blast off into the air and look down at the village. Pretty empty... Hey look,
dudes! Dudes with homemade LMGs?
[Dudes do the shoot: 5]
Wow. These primitive obviously don't know how to shoot straight, but godsdamn are they
lucky. A few bullets scrape past your armor, one of them knocking a thruster out of alignment. The computer buzzes annoyingly at you as you casually spiral down to the ground for a graceful landing. The dudes shout in their alien language at each other and you quickly grab some cover behind a convenient chest-high stone wall.
[Autotranslator:
3 1:]
"I... berrycakes! Have a banana! It's- I enjoy feline! Cross Pollinate!"So helpful.
Drop that teargas nade in behind me in the direction where I think my kidnapper was, then start getting the hell away. Try to go for a slight careful jog, sticking out my arms to prevent smacking into a tree. If there's a lot of trees and bushes around though then just crawl away.
Once outside of the teargas cloud, pop the smoke nade behind me and keep moving. Also if my suit has any sort of beacon to signal my location then activate it.
And try to regain hearing I mean seriously.
Over general radio: "Anybody still there? On of those tribal fucks just tried to..." Lana realized that even if the mechs were still around, most of them cared less about her than they would about a grease stain on their shirt, so she directed her pleads to the one that seemed to be somewhat sane.
"Ferrus, are y-, are you still there? Please get someone to bail me out of here, I'm not sure how long that flashbang will hold them off. One of them just tried to kidnap me or something! Just home in on my suit signal."
You pull the pin and drop a teargas behind you. Who knows how well that goes.
You then proceed to run in a direction. While blind and in a forest, of course.
[Navigation: 6]
You get out of the teargas cloud quickly, and drop you smoke as well. You practically sprint through the smoke cloud, deftly avoiding trees you just barely know are there. And suddenly you're surrounded by teargas again! This is harder than you thought.
You hack and spudder and throw yourself backwards, out of the teargas and onto the ground beneath a blanket of smoke.
[Regain hearing: 3]
You think the ringing might be going away? You can almost hear people over the radio, but have no clue what they're saying.
Placeholder Text!
Something is happening here, probably.
keep low, keep tending to my patient and making sure they are alive. Try to wake them up GENTLY.
[Medicy stuff - relatively calm environment, not rushing:
1 3]
You do your best, but you still don't have any experience healing while blind. You
told the professor back at the academy to spend a week on blindfolded surgery, but he didn't listen! Now look where you are.
The Chief seems to be coming-to.
"Owwwww... Dammit, what was that? I've never seen a weapon so powerful."Wait with utter peace and serenity until control is restored.
The people on the other end of the radio who weren't listening to you seem to be talking about getting you a lawyer.
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: 62/100
Attributes:
Unrelenting
Engineer
Overconfident
Inventory:
Twin Miniguns (4A each) DISABLED
Missile battery (7A)
Infantry Rifle
Gas Mask
Personal Armor (Lightly Damaged)
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: 52/100
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: 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: 92/100
Attributes:
Deadly
Acrobatic
Overconfident
Inventory:
Large full-auto Scythegun (4A, both as melee and gun)
SMG (Scythe Machine Gun)
Few Grenades
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: Could be better
Attributes:
Expendable
Inverse Ninjutsu?
Blind
Inventory:
Infantry rifle
Combat armor
No grenades
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 and thinly built, with splotchy brown leather clothing. Spirit animal - swift fox.
Mana: 0/3
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: 1/0
Attributes:
Aware
Unrelenting
Blind
Inventory:
Black Getup
Soulbound Daggermacewhip
3 Smoke Bombs
Advancements:
Wander around the barracks or whereever they shove us in this ship. Look for a screen to watch the chaos below.
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 wander out of your room. The Pilots' barracks are, predictably, way nicer than barracks have any right to be. Hell, there's a minibar. Guess it helps natives decide to sign up if they can get something this nice. Theoretically. Usually the result of failing pilot school is some mandatory service in the marines. Punishment for wasting the instructors' time, they say.
You ask someone if there's any video of the mission going on. Apparently not. Operational security.
Head over to the nearest toad vendor. Best turn my dagger invisible before leaving; wouldn't be the first time covert stabbing implements have come in handy when out shopping.
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:
Gonna cast for a shopping trip, huh? Try not to kill yourself before your first mission. ;P
Fortunately Lightshifting is pretty safe. There's no need to roll if you're just making yourself invisible, but making specific objects invisible is a roll.
[Lightshift: 2]
You succeed in bending light around your dagger in a really obviously Lightshifty way. Annoyed, you drop the spell, wait a moment for your mana to reset, and try again.
[...Lightshift!: 2]
Okay, you try again.
[Lightshift!: 1]
Ahh! This time the dagger explodes into light, startling you and absolutely not at all blinding you. Screw it, moving on.
You arrive at the Miscellaneous Animal Shop, and tell the man behind the counter that you want an order of frogs for the school. He nods and heads to the back.
Author
Topic: Power and Pulse: Crimson Sky (Read 38991 times)