Jorg 'Bass Line' Jorgenson
Deployment Zone: Viral Jungle
Chip Folder,
- Stunbolt [1]
- BlueFiend.mon [4]
- DramaticSpotlight [ 0 ]
- InvokeSoundtrack [ 0 ]
In a distant clearing in the middle of the Viral Jungle, light gathers. And with the light come viruses, eager to feast on whatever may be arriving. There's an uneasy truce between the observers as they wait for new prey, Gunkangas standing closer by far then they otherwise would with half invisible dinosaur viruses as Spitfire Bats buzz their propellers near crystalline-crocodilian Jungle Wyrms as both avoid the lazily lashing vines of the Tangle Trees.
A bridge is formed, the ground depressing in a deep well as the home sanctum of Sonata's Stagehands extends a link to this world. A darting dracofly leaps in, gun-snout full of flame to attempt to feast on whomever is coming through. A glowing blue fist swats it out of the air, shattering its rocket-wings as
BlueFiend.mon considers the area, SwordyMinions emerging 'behind' the floating warrior.
Soon the SwordyMinion.exe, backed with Officers and normal Minions, have cleared the surrounding area of local viruses, hacking down hypnotic Gourd-Vines seeking to lure victims in range of their explosive fruit, driving away Gunkangas and Spitfire Bats, and pulling the local Tangle Trees up by the roots. A secure perimeter with a brim-wall of dug up digital earth reinforced by the pealed trunks of Ironwool trees is formed with five stubby towers erected from pre-fabricated components coded in Sonata's home area and brought through the bridgehead, garrisoned by Minions with an Officer in each tower to provide overwatch.
Expeditions are sent out from this base site, cutting paths through the jungle as they attempt to chart its depths. Expeditions disappear into the jungle as paths regrow and communication is lost with the officers under the omni-hostile datasphere formed of the conflicting native viri. Entire parties of SwordyMinions find their end by being swallowed up by giant semi-motile pitcher plants as they are ensnared with with sword tipped vines, Officers vanish into the undergrowth picked off by partially invisible utahraptor viruses with mantis bladed arms, Guardians are consumed by infections of predatory moss growing their their shield and repurposing the the firewall lattice coding as secure mountings for acid spewing turret assemblies, and squads are regularly pelted with fire from hair trigger peeshooter turrets.
The trackless depths of the Viral Jungle have not earned that reputation for nothing.
Fortunately, the Bass Line is here. Though it is difficult to make lasting gains in the Datasphere conflict, he has managed to gain enough information through strife with the local datasphere to identify the relative location of several 'nodes' within the jungle, areas of more fixed providence and existence then the mutable jungle depths such as the one the Bridgehead to this zone anchored itself on.
The next expedition is headed by
BlueFiend.mon and thrice the size of the earlier scouting forces, rending a path through the jungle to the nearest node despite the interference of a clade of cyborg rocket fisted gorillas with laser eyebeams, the silverback veteran electrocuted into defeat as
BlueFiend.mon pulls it limb from limb. A natural jungle clearing is found, and a secondary uplink station constructed within to provide dedicated communication capacity for Jörgenson to ensure continual command and control.
While limited, between the two clearings and the control over the virtual space they offer Jörgenson is able to forcefully fortify a small splinter of the local data-sphere, enough to ensure a consistent connection between the two clearings and allowing for greater influence over the jungle in total. If enough of these clearings can be found and claimed, control over the overall flow of the jungle can be achieved. Doing so, however, will be easier said then done. While there are still multiple clearings on the 'outside' of the jungle, near to the shore of the Sea of Recycling where things are calmer and safer, full control will only be achieved when dominance over the central nodes at the heart of the jungle is achieved.
+1 Control in the Viral Jungle for Sonata's Stagehands.Aria
Deployment Zone: Sea of Recycling
Chip Folder,
- Missile I [1]
- Missile I [1]
- Missile I [1]
- MinionCall A [1]
- MinionCall A [1]
- DramaticSpotlight [ 0 ]
- InvokeSoundtrack [ 0 ]
There's but a few moments between the first forces arriving upon a floating platform, relayed by Farcast from the bridgepoint in the Viral Jungle, and when the first spider-legged sharkmarine crawls up from the ocean, fanged maws bristling with torpedo tube teeth to swallow the intruders. Powerful, fortified, deadly... a quick missile sees to their dismissal from the battlesphere. Luckily, such predatory megafauna seems rare here, unlike the horde of monsters interfering with attempts to chart the Viral Jungles.
As the initial landing point is fortified and a proper gate relay is constructed to simply reinforcements, scout teams spread out from the unassuming island that is where Sonata's forces have made their HQ in this zone. The first wave suffers high casualties, marooned on islands and then drowned when the tide consumes path and then island alike, fallen into the ocean when bridges crack under their feet, harassed by rocket-salmon in their football helmets, or in one case consumed by a kraken-mermaid after being subdued by her mind controlling viral-syringes tipped tentacles.
Despite these setbacks, 'safe', or at least safer, routes are steadily mapped out, and lighthouse horned island whales driven away through repeated missile strikes, preventing their holographic topology landscape projections from luring more squads into walking off the edge of the cliff. Lesser outposts are built on smaller islands at the edges of Sonata's Stagehand's control to extend Aria's influence over the local datasphere and serve as launching points for more expeditions of their own, linking together through laser semaphore towers to ensure safe navigation and communication. Minioncall A chips are used less for reinforcements, and more for the production of disposable explorers, using the short lived replicas to drive forwards in uncharted territory and seeing if they all perish.
Despite these successes, Aria reports that further expansion will likely be difficult, as wave skimming pirates have recently been detected watching the operations, and she doubts they will withdraw forever on their hoverboards and swordfish sailboats. Without naval assets of her own, or sufficiently long ranged assets that her personal attention is not needed to drop the missile strikes, driving them away is something she expected to be difficult. Of course, without the missiles she expects they could raid her with impunity as is, and she suspects that the strikes she has used so far is one of the primary reasons for their caution.
Still, even with those concerns, the first data-dredging nets are going up between island fortresses, and the catch is being inspected for any files once of Sonata before she was first driven into the darkness of the outer webs.
+1 Control in the Sea of Recycling for Sonata's Stagehands.