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I don't care.

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I don't care.

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Total Members Voted: 0

Voting closed: January 04, 2021, 02:28:47 am

[Naturegirl1999]

"William... I'm sorry.  Do you know how to regenerate?"

+1

[19_EgarAlnis]

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure Ol' Willy is unconscious, considerin' his jaw is broke out of his socket and he's, y'know, unconscious. Tends to put your ass on the ground when you get an elbow in the face from powered armor." Murdach approaches, nudging William with his foot. "Yeah, he's out like a light. Get him on the 'craft. I'll have some of my folks pop things back into place, and I'm sure he can handle the res'."

You nod, dragging William to the waiting hovercraft. Murdach sits patiently with you, holding his suit's helmet in his hands. William is rushed off by a group of pirates -- and a few tense Warmachines, to a medical bay, while you and Murdach watch on. "Suits like ours ain't for sparring with normal people. I advise that you don't wear it aroun' too often. The world starts feeling like pressboard."

[ZBridges]

"That sounds like good advice.  You know, this suit isn't the "demon" you thought it was.  We came to an understanding."

[19_EgarAlnis]

[25 vs 34]
Murdach's hand wraps around your throat and he slams you into the wall of the ship, denting the metal back and almost forcing you through the steel plate. You grit your teeth, trying to prise him off you. "If you believe that, then I shoul' kill you righ' here. You cut the head of my armor off, and you would've tried to kill me if I didn't subdue you-- tha' was killin' intent you were showin'. Hells, you shattered fuckin' William's face because he was trying to calm you down."

[13 vs 6]
Even now you have to fight to keep your calm -- and you realize something. The suit is pumping you full of chemicals, it's playing the war drums you hear in your darkest hours on loop, increasing the pace of the beat, trying to make you chomp at the bit. Red lights shine in your eyes, flashing, strobing, inciting you to anger. When you focus on them -- images of blood and slaughter and murder Your left-hand curls into a fist without your control, swinging until you put a stop to it. And she whispers to you in your voice -- Kill him. How dare he touch you -- rip his arm off -- rip him apart-...

"It ain' the demon. It makes you one."

There's a flash of light behind Murdach -- a tall, sinewy figure half-glimpsed -- grinning with feral teeth. A figure all too familiar. Like a mirror.

"It's a weapon -- don't think it wants anything more than jus' to kill. The two lads before you festooned a deck with the organs and insides of those I sent to stop it. It hunted and killed more people on this ship than I care to count."

[ZBridges]

"I'm sorry.  I understand now.  It has its place, but I will be careful."

[Superdorf]

Oh, it's a demon. A soul-eater.

...

Phoebe.
I-- I would not tell you to kill-- but I could not tell you to die-- and I did not speak--
--and you would not kill. You are free. You are free. I rejoice, that you are free.

...I still don't trust this armor one bit. Are you-- capable of removing it?

[19_EgarAlnis]

[15 vs 10]
After a small nod to Murdach, you give the open command. With great reluctance, the spike driven into your spinal column retracts, and you tumble out to the hull of the deck. Your body aches as pain returns -- but you turn your attention to the armor. Where the sparring blade impacted it is--- is flesh. Beneath the plates of metal is very human, very organic looking flesh. Pale white, with sinews twisting parts back together. Blood gushes from the many wounds on the armor to the ground below. It seals itself and straightens. Watching. Quietly. One of its hands twist up of its own volition, touching at a wound gently, before letting the arm fall.

Where the facemask has been smashed too, is flesh. A twisted parody of a human's face beneath the armor, stretched and distorted into the shape of a demonic helmet. Its lenses twitch, and it smiles with rows of feral, savage, bone white teeth.

[ZBridges]

If anything can put fear into the heart of Magnus, this visage is it.  Use it for battle and training only.

"Do you mind if I make some other purchases?  I was just speaking to your armorer earlier."

[Eschar]

I trust the damn thing less than I trust Cephie. Which is to say only bound with tightest oaths and threats, and never with your back turned.

Examine the face and flesh.

[Superdorf]

Good grief.

If you must know, "Good Doctor"... yes, I was afraid. Of what that thing might do to us, and of what it might make us do. Was I so wrong in that?

[ZBridges]

No, you were not.  However, I feel it is sometimes justified to take risks in order to increase our power.  The Plague and Magnus are threats that will require all the strength we can muster.

[19_EgarAlnis]

Only the soft dripping of red blood informs you that this thing has human flesh. An assumption, based upon previous knowledge. The creator...you swallow as you approach it. The face is inhuman, only called a face because it sits on the front of the head. Its mouth, when shut, is sealed with the metal plating-- and the flesh must lie between both that and the internals. Slowly, the wounds stop oozing blood, and small dots of metal appear. With its mouth open, you can see a scant space for a digestive tract between the mouth and the metal within of the internal exoskeleton.

You shudder -- there's an energy port on the neck, and you can feel the gentle thrum of some sort of reactor from it -- but the reactor beats like a heart. You examine the wounds, and focusing your eyesight, you notice the gentle writhing of its internals as it regrows the damaged flesh. The arms, having been stripped of the plating by a strike, are a tensely coiled, black, synthetic material shaped like muscle but it feels harder than steel.

"Meat. Power." It hisses in static. "Meat. Or hunt."

"You ain' going in my armory with tha'. I'll get you the catalog. You can browse it ousid' the ship and call in your order."

[ZBridges]

"Hold on, the suit is hungry.  I will take it hunting."

Bring the suit to a fair distance from the ship, and then put it on and go hunting for animals or Plagued beings.

[Superdorf]

It's what now? No.

We can read our catalog-- toss the [demon] a steak or something later if we must. This is not the time or the place for... suit-hunting.

[ZBridges]

Would you prefer a suit that is kept fed and contented, or a starving suit that develops animosity for its uncaring owner?  I'd like to see what its capabilities are.

I think you should try to suppress some of your fear.  I know you were worried about Lucile as well, calling it "vampiric" and saying that using it would bind us to a "dark power."