Run further into the building. Doesn't really matter where. Just try not to lose consciousness.
[Thy Heading Is True: 3+1]
The demon swarm is blissfully thinner here and the halls are familiar enough - you've been in one prefab Hell-project, you've essentially been inside all of them. What you need here, you reason, is probably some kind of cover, which means you want an apartment to hide inside of. Which means you want someone who values security and good escape routes, so probably one of the local drug dealers or weapons smugglers... who should have a door not unlike the one that you come upon in the middle of the hallway, dodging skillfully out of the way of a passing speed demon before shuffling through the semi-darkness to get a closer look.
Still looks unbreached, you note, and not for lack of trying. These demons probably spent a fair few minutes trying to bust it down before they seem to have lost patience and left for greener pastures to defile.
[Eyes In The Sky: 3+1]
You are definitely being watched, you think as you examine the security system, which looks somewhat questionably penetrable even under optimal conditions. Not just by the little blinking light in the door that just took your picture either, definitely by something else as well.
Yell
"ITS BEHIND YA LADY!"
Then try to get away from Nuxkagoslust with or without her, My priority for survival is ME. Though helping someone who saved me is still on the "Probably a good idea" list, because owing more people just isn't great...
[All Mine: 3]
The lady turns around and, spotting Nuxkagoslust, lets out a deeply upsetting guttural hiss that seems to even give the great demon some pause - not one to waste a good opportunity to run the fuck away, you turn tail and immediately begin to sprint away, and both the lady and the winged monstrosity trail after you, the former on all fours and the latter nearly, but not quite taking flight. On balance the lady looks a little bit faster, gaining on you steadily as you shoot out of the alleyway like a man possessed.
Oddly, the demons clear a path for you as they hoot, spit fire and observe - they are eager to see you run down by the two following you, and at your current rate there is no question that they will do just that very soon indeed.
Follow the rest of the gang; there doesn't seem to be much else that I can do here.
"...
Dude.
You're a vampire necromancer stuck in a hole with a bloodsucking barmaid and a maestro of noise, about to break out into an army of demons from the bowels of Hell itself fighting a horde of your zombies, in a shitty bar at the bottom of the worst fortress in the Realms of Circumstance, and you don't think there's anything you can do?
Watch. And. Learn."
Acquire a chainaxe and rollerskates from Bear's 'found instrument' section, then tell him he knows what song to play. When the fifteen seconds are up, roll out the door, and rip up any demons/dwarves who stand between me and the exit.
Here's hoping this either succeeds perfectly or fails embarrassingly.
[At Death's Gate: 3]
You do manage to retrieve a pair of rollerskates, certainly, there's a sizable pile of them in the corner. And there's a mint condition fire axe as well (what kind of madman would fight fire with an axe anyway?), for all the good it'll likely do you. You slip on the skates and roll up to the trapdoor, which seems to currently remain unmolested on account of a slight distraction offered by whatever horrible fuckery Jal seems to have perpetrated up in the barroom without even looking. Sometimes you forget the little nebbish has some pretty scary powers.
Anyway, you say as you lift the axe and prepare to roll out, it's long past time to make a break for it. You motion for Bear to hit it!
[I Fear There's A Way Out: 5,
2+1]
The noise goes wild as you kick open the trapdoor, Jalormis trailing in your wake as you skate out into the barroom where the demoniac party has taken a turn for the seriously wild - animate bits of blackened, melted dwarf appear to have taken new shape as a monstrous plague of amorphous flesh wages war on the dance floor, tossing winged figures left and right, manifesting teeth and hooked tendrils as it tears right into the bigger demons with no heed to its own safety. The walls themselves have begun to peel inwards from the noise and the floors wave as Bear's carefully managed cacophony aligns itself with the resonant frequencies of virtually everything in the bar, the few bits of unexploded glass choosing the moment of your entrance to completely shatter, which on the average demon appears to have about as much effect as a shower of confetti, savage claws going up in the air like they just don't care.
Your song rings out through the cacophony, as if it were meant just for you as you use it to guide yourself through the chaos, the floors rippling and inclining in perfect harmony with your own roller derby escape as you jump over malevolent pools of bubbling flesh and bury your axe into any small fry demon dumb enough to stand in your way and then use the slight amount of give from their skulls to make sharp turns, carving a serpentine path through the barroom with Jalormis trailing in your wake, animating whatever's left to cover your escape. The sound system screams and wails, the bar itself thrashing in its death throes as the ceiling starts to buckle, and finally you reach the front door, which looks to have been pushed in, then kicked open, then ripped apart, then entirely melted by increasing size categories of fiend.
[Make Way: 3+1]
With a final twirl for effect you land out front in the parking lot of the quickly crumpling ruin of Death's Gate, the sea of demons outside roaring and pushing up the walls themselves, swarming into the collapsing building past you with reckless abandon, the seemingly irresistible screeching within echoed out here with a thousand mouths.
There is a sudden pause - perhaps they recognize true game. Or perhaps it's the way the bar behind you looks like it's about to be crushed like an aluminum can - the demons look on with a kind of peculiar innocent fascination, clearly anticipating amazing fireworks to occur. You can feel it too - the final drop is coming in, and Bear's about to bring the entire house down.
Observe and absorb information (watch and learn).
Do that while following her out and firing some necromantic blasts at enemies, of course.
Enir pops on a pair of roller skates and gets the fire axe, ready to get the hell out or die again trying, and you're just about ready to cover her as well - as the found noise swells and mutates into a new and somehow more violent movement, the two of you burst out the trapdoor into the barroom, where your uncontrolled flesh horror appears to be doing extremely good work controlling the demon population, seemingly having spread throughout the bar in no time at all and assimilated pretty much everything within easy reach. Shame that it doesn't have any way to tell friend from foe, but you guess they can't all be perfect.
[I Fear There's A Way Out:
2+1, 5]
As the fortified trapdoor is slammed shut behind you, you can't help but hesitate a moment as Enir dives headlong into the chaos, maneuvering by skates and axe in equal measure through the throng of fiends while you slide along behind on her trail of split skulls and loose limbs. The building seems to be slowly turning to jelly as you proceed through it, demons and scattered survivors alike disappearing as stray bits of abused architecture fold in on them. As the horde follows emboldened, you throw what spare power you have into momentarily animating whatever demonflesh flies your way and sending it to die gloriously to buy you as much as half a second of wiggle room at a time.
Streaking across the room in random digressions and last-minute turns like a bolt of lightning, Enir makes it to the front door in good time, and you slip out right behind her to the front of the bar, where a sea of demons lies ahead, singing horrific dirges about the Feast of Feasts and serenading the half-collapsing, half-exploding husk of Death's Gate, welcoming the destruction of all things as the final peal of Mr. Lovegod's evil noise assemblage is echoed in their fevered cries.
Jalormis, Extremely Undead Guy
Alternatively Souled: Vampire
Money: 2
Old Yeller: A Horrific Debt
Evil Minion: the Honorary Zombie
The Abyssal Players: Immortal Instrument
Too Close: 2
Enir Nazush, Barmaid of the Night
Alternatively Souled: Vampire
Weapon of Choice: Fire Axe
A Pair of Beat-Up Roller Skates (worn)
Outfit: Awful Schoolgirl-Dominatrix Uniform
Personal Therapy Assistant: Overjoyed
Death's Gate: Too Many Vampires
Old Yeller: Left To One's Devices
Break Yo Shins: Down Payment
Money: 3
Too Close: 1
Urist mac Slughterfiend, Miner on the Edge
Money: Flat Broke
Gruesome Insolvency: Surreal Debts
Eyes of the Butterfly: Nuxkagoslost's Wrath
Green-Eyed Lady: The Hunt Is On
Too Close: 3
Cazin Crundle-Smasher, Uncanny Bookkeeper
Money: 1
Old Yeller: Hopefully Dead
Too Close: 2
Author
Topic: Cyberdwarf: Concession and Cancellation in a Far-Future Fortress (Read 14841 times)